October ‘95

*Additional notes may appear in italics after my mom’s initial journal entries.
A ladybug means you should check the comments at the bottom of the page to see what Mom has chimed in on after reading these!

October 1, Sunday

I called my friend Kathy for her Birthday today.

October 3, Tuesday

O.J. Simpson- NOT GUILTY.
Half of the office was gathered around the TV for the verdict. The phone at the front desk never rang once in that 15 minutes leading up to the reading of the verdict. Like the whole nation was watching.

*Ah, yes, the court case that rocked the world and changed news as we knew it. Mom was absolutely right, the whole nation was watching. There was a great docuseries that used to be on Netflix, but I can’t seem to find the video I’m thinking of. Anyway, one episode pointed out how, prior to this event, there was maybe a handful of news channels, but otherwise there was more like a few hours of the nightly news. But the way the Simpson trial captivated the country was insane and changed everything. I absolutely remember the adults being huddled around the TV at times or checking in throughout the day to see if there were any updates. CNN’s ratings were off the charts - news channels realized they could captivate people with the right story (or headline) and so began the crawl towards regularly sensationalized news as we know it today, where more often than not, ratings take precedence over fact. 🫤 The whole thing was a most unfortunate event in more ways than one.

October 6, Friday

Peg came over after school again and stayed the weekend.
Shine came over Sat. and stayed for dinner. He got a puppy- black lab- named her Spur.
Last weekend John painted the garage- looks nice. This weekend he’s helping the neighbor, Mike, on his house again.

 *At some point in the fall, I chopped off all my hair for the first time. Mom had chopped hers off earlier that year and I believe this particular style I chose was based on my cousin Ariann’s haircut that I liked. Eventually, this practice would become a trend in my adulthood. Grow, chop! Grow, chop!

October 8, Sunday

We went out to dinner with John and Maryann at Charlie Clark’s.

October 9, Monday

Happy B-day Jo.

I stayed home today, not feeling too well.
Samie finished Goon’s cross stitch turtle for her birthday. She also finished the  sail boat for Rane. She does a real good job!!

October 11, Wednesday

Happy Birthday #17- Goon I’m so glad we were able to spend the summer together. I will miss the nightly phone calls.

October 12, Thursday

Yesterday Gary and Liz took us to lunch. Today Theresa, Carolyn and Marian took me to lunch, really nice.
Peggy and Billy and Shine came over. Shine started a new job making the rows for a tree farm out behind the paper mill. His 1st day and he stepped on a nail.
Said goodbye to the kids for awhile again.
Samie stayed at Sam and Rane’s. She had planned a big surprise birthday party for Rane, her B-day is the 14th.

October 13, Friday

Last day of work- again! Leaving this time was so different than a year ago. This time around we know what is waiting for us and are very anxious to get back home.
Mexico and our boat are home to us now- Lakeside is just a cooler place to spend the summer. We were lucky to have had the time to spent with the kids although I wish we could have seen more of the older girls and of course Schyler.
4:01 pm and we picked up Samie and are on our way! We got to Steve and Brenda’s about 8:30 pm and stayed there for the night.

October 14, Saturday

Danielle and Chelle and Schyler came over to Brenda’s- John and Alice also, for lunch. Schyler has grown so much in the last month, he is quite the chubby little chunk!
On the freeway just 5 miles or so from Mom’s we got rear-ended. Danielle was in her blazer in front of us and she pulled over too. The guy following us didn’t see traffic stopped ahead, slammed on his breaks and squealed into us doing about 15 mph. Thank goodness he got stopped that much. No one was hurt just greatly shook up and the trunk on our car is about 2 feet shorter on the driver’s side. It had to be towed to Mom’s- where they and Andy’s family were all waiting to have dinner- sorry Mom, I feel like I’m gonna puke!
We were gonna keep Schyler overnight, but I’m too shaken, darn.

October 15, Sunday

John cut away the part of the fender that was pushed up and rubbing on the tire, so now it’s drivable, we just have to tie the trunk down and there are a few extra noises but all is ok.
Faron, Chelle, Schyler and Danielle all came over to Mom’s before we left at noon and headed for John and Maryann’s.

October 16, Monday

We got an estimate to fix the car- ha! $2500 – it’s totalled – we turned in a claim with the other guy’s agent and will take care of it next year when we go back to the states.
Got our VISAS and car tag and are home at last about 3:30 pm.
Move all the stowed goodies from below to on deck. We went into San Carlos and found Nanamuk  and had some dinner.

October 17, Tuesday

Generator and cell phone no good – John says they are his curse. He does figure out the gen-set though, it just needed the fuel line bled and presto, she fires up.
I’ve got everything put away but I’ll wait till after we haul out to go through and wipe everything down real good.

October 18, Wednesday

John had a guy clean the bottom on the boat, he said it wasn’t too bad.
Oh when we put the sails back on we got the jib on upside down – woops!

October 19, Thursday

It sure is nice to have a car here for the running back and forth to San Carlos. We have gone out to dinner every night since  we are hauling out and won’t have a fridge.
I tried to start school, but it’s gonna take some effort to get back into that routine.

October 20, Friday

We motored over to Marina San Carlos, which was wonferful in spite of being real rolly due to the wind blowing 20 knots all afternoon and night.
They have quite a rig for hauling the boats out. They pull you up on the trailer and hold you in place with hydraulic “arms” and pull it all with a tractor up the yard.
John sprayed her off and we scraped the little barnacles.
Joe from Wind Gypsy who we met in Ensenada is here, we hadn’t seen or heard about him since last Nov.
Renegade is here in the yard- but no Arne or Janice yet.

October 21, Saturday

Happy B-day Janice!

John put 2 coats of paint on today, via roller. She has some small bubbles in last year’s paint along the water line due to the paint being put on too thin. Next year we will haul her out and leave in dry storage for the summer while we are in the States, allowing the bottom to dry out completely, sand her down and repaint.
Samie and I spent the afternoon at the pool and while I was laying in the sun I started laughing! Just a week ago I was living in the cold and having to go to work- those poor souls we left behind! How lucky we are!
We went to a phone and called Mom, no one home, just left a message. But she had been on the ham net looking for us. Chelle wasn’t home either, they were in Lakeside.
Well, Janice you were supposed to be here by today- where are you?

October 22, Sunday

John finished the painting- he put on an extra coat at the water line. Spent the rest of the day at the pool. Joe went out to eat with us tonight.

October 23, Monday

Back in the water this morning by 9 am- Hurray!!
Samie and I rode in the boat on the trailer that pulled us back to the water, not as bad as I figured. We motored back around to Marina Real and got the dust and dirt washed off and vacuumed out.
I went through the food bins and re-sorted. Had to throw out the big bag of rice - bugs.
John went into Guaymas and got the phone re-connected. Called Mom and Chelle, they are still in Lakeside.
Sat down to dinner and wow- Peg called, just like through the summer.

October 24, Tuesday

Worked on this and that on the boat- John dinghied in fuel to fill the tanks.
Bought some fresh quail from Alejandro. I fried them up for dinner.

October 25, Wednesday

I’m starting to get back into the school routine.
Started not feeling too good this afternoon. Had a dock dinner party for Arne’s 50th B-day on Maiden Voyage - also Ananda and Miss Teak II.

October 26, Thursday

I slept most of the day, not feeling good at all.

October 27, Friday

Talked to Steve P. on the ham radio- still feel like shit.
Ananda and Maiden Voyage left today around noon to cross over to the Baja side.

October 28, Saturday

Still not feeling great, but managed to do some school.
John went into town and brought back Renegade! Arne and Janice finally made it last night! They spent the afternoon here with us. At 5 pm we went to Bill and Trish’s house for a bit and then to meet Arne and Janice for dinner.

*It took me a minute to catch it, but I remembered 3 nights before Mom saying we had celebrated Arne’s birthday - but he wasn’t even there yet?! I love that we celebrated him, regardless, but funny that we didn’t just wait a couple days? 🤷‍♀️

October 29, Sunday

Happy B-day Ruby & Russ

We, along with Northern Sky motored out on Nanamuk to Martini Cove and spent 1.2 of the day on the beach for Alan’s 9th Birthday. It was a wonderful feeling to be on a beach again. Later we had pizza with Arne and Janice.
We called Mom and the kids - all is well.

October 30, Monday

We had planned to leave this morning for Ballandra Bay on Isla Carmen, but we woke up to rain, stormy clouds and 15 knots of westerly winds- so it’s off for today.
We had Arne and Janice over and BBQed some great steaks.

October  31, Tuesday

Happy Halloween

Well, this morning we woke up to rain (rained most of the night) and very dark, stormy clouds again. Reports from the other side have had strong winds and rain also through the night- so it is off again.
Did a few more jobs on the boat.
Tonight we had Nanamuk over for dinner and the kids dressed for Halloween. Samie decorated the boat and trick-or-treated on the dock, taking everyone treats. Ed and Randi on Abientot had made her a caterpillar out of shells- cutest thing, it’s about 9 inches long. Rob had carved a watermelon jack-o-lantern, cute idea!

November ‘95

*Additional notes may appear in italics after my mom’s initial journal entries.
A ladybug means you should check the comments at the bottom of the page to see what Mom has chimed in on after reading these!

November 1, Wednesday

Clouds are moving off this morning, so it’s a go! Bill and Trisha come down to see us off.
We release the dock lines at 10 am and are headed out --- whoops, our main GPS is hung up and won’t work, so John pulls out the back up one. Now the video camera won’t work, what the heck! We get out around the point and hail Nanamuk who is out from the main anchorage a ways- and they say they are going back due to the main engine is over heating by 20°. So we head back in also - oh well, it’s really rolly out here with this west swell, which we would be cross-ways with on the most part.
Ok, Samie and I go ahead and do school when we get back in at noon. John takes the GPS in to Guaymas to see if he can get it fixed- no luck. We will have Bill and Trisha take it back to Arizona and John Muir can send it off to the factory and bring it when they fly into La Paz.
We went into dinner, saw Rob and Grace, they got their problem fixed. Back on the boat - GPS works now- so what do we do, hope it keeps working or go ahead and send it back?

November 2, Thursday

John took the car into the Gibson’s, they are letting us park it there while we are cruising this winter. Not too many clouds hovering above today- 8:30 am and we leave Marina Real.

John goes below to check the engine room - whoops, I had opened the sea cocks instead of closing them and we have salt water squirting all over the engine room.
It’s real rolly out here with the westerly swell, not much wind, when I spot a whale swim across our bow and John spots a manta ray jump to the port.
We are about an hour out when Nanamuk reports a plugged fuel filter. They have to turn off the engine to make the change and they are really bobbing up, down and all over the place. We head in their direction and in 20 minutes they are underway again. Five minutes later fuel filter plugs, this time they rig a line into a jerry jug of new fuel and decide it’s best to head back and clean out all the fuel. We see that they are ok and will make it back, but head on across. By now it’s 12:30 pm.
That 2nd time we were waiting we spotted a 6 or 7 foot shark, we more or less chased him down while I videoed him swimming on the surface.
John caught a medium size Bonito, which we returned to the Sea God.
The sea has calmed down and we have 5 to 10 knots SW, very pleasant. As the sun is setting we can already see the mountains on the Baja.
There was a three-quarter moon shining from above, light winds and calm seas took us into Ballandra Bay on the NW side of Isla Carmen at 8:30 am.

November 3, Friday

True Blue is here waiting for us. The 1st go at anchoring we dropped down on a rock and decided to move back a bit, that’s better.
Ken and Tameron came over, Tam stayed, I took a much needed nap, John and Ken went snorkeling and brought back a few scallops.
We had all of True Blue over for happy hour, we are all so glad to be back on the water.
We are all beat and in bed by 7:30.

November 4, Saturday

It was one year ago today that we left to come down the Baja west coast with the “ha ha”. We are no longer freshman and I can sure feel the difference in myself. I have realized just how much more I would rather be here on our home afloat than anywhere else! I am so much more relaxed than even at the end of last season. The anchorage is so peaceful and this is such a wonderful life! I’m so lucky!
This morning there was a pod of dolphins swimming back and forth across the mouth of the bay.
School was a challenge this morning and Samie decided right off that she wasn’t going to be able to learn how to count out change. A lot of patience and it finally started to sink in.
Samie played at the beach and on True Blue, while I took yet another nap and the guys went off [to get] more scallops trying to make a full meal. We ended up with 10 or 12 only along with some wonderful shrimp we had bought in San Carlos.
Avenger II, Gary and Louise came in and anchored today.

*Many, many kudos to my mom for her patience in teaching me! We had many remarks from my teachers throughout the years about what a great job she was doing. Yes, we had the help of our curriculum through Calvert Homeschooling, but Mom really kept us up with everything and worked well with me to keep me focused and get school done so we could enjoy the rest of the day and play. Calvert Homeschool was a great choice for us. At the time, they operated out of Baltimore, MA and they mailed us all the curriculum we needed for the year, then Mom would periodically mail back tests and whatnot for a teacher to review and verify how we were doing. I remember getting the big boxes of new, shiny books, pencils, and paper - I was always so excited to learn… I still am! At the time, Calvert only went to the 8th grade, which is part of why we came back to the States permanently when I was of age for high school, but also, my parents figured it would be good for me to be around more kids my age and do the whole high school thing.

November 5, Sunday

Nanamuk finally left San Carlos today, in the rain and had that and about 10-12 knots of wind most of the way.
Here in Ballandra it drizzled a soft rain all day.
Maiden Voyage and Ananda came in and anchored this afternoon.

November 6, Monday

True Blue, Maiden Voyage and Ananda all left this am for Escondido. Nanamuk came in around noon. We all spent some time on the beach. We got a small hole in the dink it seems because no one wore shoes and it was too rocky to walk the dink out so we were riding a little low.
The mountains of Escondido have been hidden in thick, dark clouds for days now and it’s even darker tonight- we found out they had a downpour.

November 7, Tuesday

We left Ballandra Bay, Isla Carmen around 9:30 am, headed for Escondido. We had 10-25 knots out of the North all the way in. About an hour out we spotted the dolphins that swim the bay each a.m. I got out the video camera and got some great pictures, even though it may make the viewer a bit dizzy. There were also several pilot whales. We watched for the Sea’s pod of Orcas that True Blue had seen, but no luck. It was spectacular!
Tam and Matt played here and Samie went with them into land for dinner.
We made contact with Steve and Brenda on the ham.
We have heard through the different grape vines that Endless Summer is in the Pacific somewhere and out of money. Magic Carpet is in Tonga. Wish I knew where Unity and Valiant Lady were.

November 8, Wednesday

Happy B-day Janice

We cranked in the muddy anchor, Samie was forward hosing it down as it came in, leaving Escondido at around 8:30 am. So we have ourselves, True Blue, Maiden Voyage, Ananda and Nanamuk all headed for Auga Verde with the promise of 15 to 20 knots out of the north; should be a pleasant down wind sail. NOT, instead we had very light and variables, oh well. True Blue, Nanamuk and Maiden Voyage are all trying to fly the brightly colored spinnakers.
We anchored in Agua Verde around 2 pm, this is where we were on May 5th when Schyler was born.
Most of the crews took a swim, the sun came out for a very few minutes. Mostly we have had another drizzly afternoon which went on through the night.
Before I hit the feathers, the moon was playing peek-a-boo behind thick, fluffy clouds. As I watched, it floated behind a funnel-looking break in the cloud cover, at this point there was a red ring around the moon which made the clouds look a pretty light shade of pink.

*This photo is from a couple years later, but it’s a good example. Some anchorages are muddier than others and we would opt to hose down the chain while we haul it in. This helps keep the anchor locker (which was basically a cupboard at the head of my bedroom) from getting all gunked-up and smelly. I was more than happy to help! On that note, I was almost always up front helping Dad haul in the anchor, anyway. I enjoyed the workout, and it helped go faster when we would take turns. Nowadays most boats have electric windlasses which allow them to haul in the anchor at the push of a button. We had a manual crank we used. Back and forth, back and forth, a few chain links at a time and typically about 20-30ft worth of chain.
I found this video that best demonstrates what we were working with. You can see the main difference is that our anchor locker didn’t open from the top like this, it was funneled straight down through part of the windlass itself.

November 9, Thursday

The sty John got has turned out to be some kind of infection moving across his eye lid. Rob gave him some eye drops -sodium sulamyd- and over the next few days it cleared up. He has had quite a few stys out here in the salt water.
It was another drizzly kind of day which made me feel like baking cookies. Rainy or snowy weather usually does that to me.
All three girls played over here again today.
Talked to Steve on ham.

November 10, Friday

The sun broke out today so I did some laundry, it took all day to dry as it was not real warm.
Several of us dinghied across the bay to a small village that sits inland just a bit. There were the prettiest baby goats and piglets walking around and a small playground. John had taken in some candy to give out to kids.
Around 4:30 us and 3 boats –“kid boats”- all got together on the beach for a weenie and marshmallow roast at the “Agua Verde Yacht Club”. The girls had worn skirts and hats for the occasion, they all played tag and football catch. A good, no, great time was had by all!!
Tonight as the moon came up it was surrounded by a huge ring- beautiful, along with a thousand stars.

*It was not abnormal to take some treats in to the kids on the beaches, we had a little stash of things, including some little wooden toy airplanes, pencils, paper and maybe some bouncey balls or something like that. Sometimes even people would come out to the boat to say hello and Dad would hand some things out while we said hello and made friends. I feel like this happened more in the first years than the latter.
Agua Verde was one of our favorite places, although the protection was limited and weather tended to be a hit-or-miss most of the time. This was a fun night at the beach with all our friends. It’s always a lovely feeling, traveling with people you actively choose to be around, that you get along with and whom you enjoy adventuring with. What a treat, truly!

November 11, Saturday

Well John forgot this anniversary too!! 6 years! We left Augua Verde this morning around 8:30 and all headed for Los Gatos. It was another downwind sail, arriving at 12:00 noon or there abouts.
Ananda and Maiden Voyage are here. After hiking for awhile on the beautiful red sandstone rocks and tidal pools, everyone got together on the beach for happy hour.
The friends we have met here in the cruising world are as wonderful as the places and things we have seen!
The north wind really kicked up a stormy sea and it’s rolling its way right on on here and rocking the 5 boats every which way. Rock and Roll night. And last May it was so calm.

*I LOVED climbing and exploring all over these rocks in Los Gatos! They were red/orange and rounded and so different from the typical landscape. It’s not listed as we know it on Google Maps, so I always have to spot it with my eyes based of rough distance between known anchorages and, like I said, the color.

November 12, Sunday

Happy B-day Faron!

Nanamuk left the anchorage at 7 am trying to “beat” the rest of us to San Evaristo. We left at 8:00 am or so. The trip started out real rolly with the north swell, we did manage to keep some breeze in the sails today and the sea did calm down a bit.

At 5 to 6 knots boat speed it took us 6.5 hours to travel 27 miles, but wow it’s spectacular here. As we were putting around finding out “spot” there were 6 to 12 small bat rays “flying” across the bay, it was sooo cool- unfortunately I could not get to the video camera to record it. I only hope they do a repeat performance tomorrow.
Tonight we had BBQ lobster tails and scallops in paradise.
Oh- Samie lost one of her 8-year-old molars.
Peg called, talked to Mom and Chelle and Faron. Danielle was not home, she has moved back in with Jacque.

*I did a little reference check and that 27 miles would normally be about a 30-minute drive. Seems crazy, but half the fun is being out on the water and enjoying the scenery!

November 13, Monday

After school we all went into shore and walked up to the little tienda, picked up some eggs, cigs and juice, no bread or butter. We spend the afternoon snorkeling. What a way to live!
Samantha and Janelle spent the night with Tameron on True Blue while Matt stayed on Nanamuk with Alan.

November 14, Tuesday

Cheryl wanted Samie to do school on their boat (being a teacher and all). She said it went real well and gave Samie high marks on her reading abilities.
Since we have been out for nearly 2 weeks now we are nearly out of bread- I baked a loaf. It didn’t rise too well, but it’s eatable.
John rigged the spinnaker pole so the kids could swing out from the pulpit and drop into the water. They had a blast.
The way the wind comes down in the cove from the surrounding mountains at different angles makes all the boats “dance” around to different tunes - one swings this way, while another swings that way.

November 15, Wednesday

I was up at 4 am thanks to a shrimp boat anchoring near us. They run their engines all night long and I could not go back to sleep.
We left the beauty of San Evaristo behind in search of Isla San Francisco just 2 hours southeast. We dropped the hook at 10 am and did school before spending the rest of the day on the beach. Not too many puka shells left, but I picked up lots of others to take home to the nieces and nephews.
Tonight we saw the planets, Jupiter, Mars and Venus in the western sky just after sunset. They are all lining up. Sometime soon the moon is supposed to line up with them.

November 16, Thursday

Ourselves and True Blue left today for Isla Partida. We had a nice 10 knot north wind, taking us about 5 hours. Spent the afternoon on the beach.
Samie and I finally started on Spanish.

November 17, Friday

After school, about 10:30 ourselves and True Blue headed for La Paz, city life! ICE! After anchoring and getting cleaned up we went into shore to eat.
We are just off a beach and Marina de La Paz. On the beach there was a band playing with an occasionally English tune, that floated over to the boat. Pretty!

*lol, ice was like GOLD down there!

November 18, Saturday

We got a ride into CCC, the big market, from Jerry who was in Ensenada when we were. Hung around the ‘Dock’ for awhile and back to the boat.
Shine called tonight, all is well.

*I’m uncertain, but if this isn’t what we knew as CCC, it would have been something similar to this.

November 19, Sunday

John could only find one battery, so he replaced the 2 bad ones and hopefully he can find one more in P.V.
We walked into town down to DAX and Mos, 2 big department stores. They were all decorated with Xmas decorations, even Christmas trees. But somehow it’s hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it’s 80 degrees outside.
Tameron spent the afternoon and night with us. The girls sure did have fun, they were singing and dancing along to the Ray Stevens tape, I even joined in.
We got a letter today from Laura and Steven from our dock in San Diego. It was really quite amazing that we got it, it was addressed only to our name, boat name, Mexico. Another boat had brought it down from Downwind in San Diego and only in a month’s time it found us.

*This was the biggest department store I’d ever been in at the time! I remember the escalators and being so wowed by it all. Especially being used to the smaller village towns, and coming from a small town myself, it was all pretty new to me. I most loved trips here, though, ‘cause it meant we were getting our film developed! Back when you had 24 chances for the perfect “Kodak Moment” per roll of film, and then you had to wait days, weeks, or in our case, even months to take them in for developing and see what came out! Imagine finding out the“perfect shot” you got had a finger in front of the lens, you cut a whole half a person out of the photo, or the flash hadn’t gone off. Maybe it was way under exposed and you couldn’t make one thing out from the other. Oh, the suspense! Kids these days will never know!
Also, I absolutely love this story about the letter from Laura and Steven finding us with such little information. It makes my heart happy. 🥰

November 20, Monday

The VCR has been messed up since we got back, the power won’t stay on and it won’t insert or eject tapes properly - so John took it in to be repaired.
I did 3 loads of laundry - in machines!
We went to the ‘Dock’ and watched Monday night football along with True Blue.

*I found this video of how a VCR works… No wonder these things were always getting gobbled up and tangled!

November 21, Tuesday

Arne and Janice, Renegade came in this afternoon and went straight to the marina. We all went out for a bite to eat.

November 22, Wednesday

Samie had her 1st test of the 3rd grade. Out of 10 pages she only missed 3 questions. Great! 😊 She -actually WE- are also doing pretty good at El Espanol, it’s different and fun! We called the kids, all is well, Chelle and Faron are going to be moving into a house on their own. Schyler is rolling over, scooting around and trying to crawl.
Peggy has worked at Kmart 2 days now and so far does not like it, but that’s normal. She will probably go to Billy’s for Thanksgiving dinner. Her Dad and Melissa went to St. George. So did my Mom and Dad. Shine will probably eat at Travis’s.
Danielle is still gonna try to come out to Zihuatanejo in Jan.

November 23, Thursday

Happy Turkey Day
Happy B-day Debby M & Kenny B

For the most part we all took the day off.
Around 2 pm we went into shore, hung around until 3:30 and headed for the cruiser’s Thanksgiving get together dinner. The food was great and we were with our little ocean family, Nanamuk, True Blue and Renegade among others.

November 24, Friday

Finally got checked in.
Nanamuk and True Blue departed this afternoon heading for P.V. via stops along the way.
Tonight the moon, Venus, Mars and Jupiter all lined up on the horizon.

November 25, Saturday

John took the dink in to the dock by Renegade to finally fix the small leak we had acquired somehow in Ballandra at Isla Carmen. Turned out it was the inside and not on the bottom as thought.
While I lemon-oiled all the interior wood, Samie made up her own little board game. She gets very creative with the lack of T.V.
Arne and Janice of Renegade came over for a chicken BBQ and we enjoyed a very nice evening.
Just before the sliver of the moon set on the horizon it was a beautiful dark pinkish-red color.
Janice let us read the letters they have gotten from Stuart and Tracy on Endless Summer who crossed to the South Pacific last April. He is quite a storyteller in his writing about their adventures. Very good and most interesting.

November 26, Sunday

Today in school Samie wrote a wonderful composition about being an Orca for a couple of days. She did an excellent job.
Janice, Samie and myself spent the day walking to the east end of town and did some window shopping. The guys joined us and we all had a pretty good pizza.
The last week here in the La Paz anchorage has been one of extra strong tides and currents along with a 10-20 knot wind. The days are spent facing the SW as the tide goes out and a north wind blows at our stern, making for a rocky and very choppy day. The sea breeze can be somewhat chilly even though the temp. is in the low 80s. Getting to the dock in the dink is not so bad but the return trip is always a wet one as we must go through and into the wind chop.
This morning proved to be very flat and calm day, better enjoy it while we can, it probably won’t last.
Oh, Mom called today, they returned from St. George last night.

November 17, Monday

Today was just a quiet day. We spent some time at Renegade. Talked to True Blue who was half way to Isla Isabella, they have sailed some and had to motor some. Nanamuk is still waiting for the right wind before leaving Los Muertos. Here in La Paz we had another calm day with a light breeze out of the SE. The evenings and mornings are really chilling down.

November 28, Tuesday

About 2 am this morning the wind shifted back to the north and kicked up to 15 to 20 knots and that’s where it stayed all day. We stayed on the boat all day rather than leave her in the strong winds. Which made for a rather long, boring day, John started and finished a whole book, with the lack of anything more interesting or exciting. Samie stayed pretty busy, she is making Christmas cards.
Talked to Steve on the radio. Goon called and we called the Roach’s.

November 29, Wednesday

Spent the day doing a little of this and that on the boat. John “whipped” all the reefing ties on the sails. We went over to Renegade for a nice dinner. Samie called Sam and Rane.

November 30, Thursday

Well, November has slipped on by and it’s starting to feel like winter is slipping in- such as winters are here in the tropics. It was 68° this a.m. at 6:30, but it warmed up to 82° in the afternoon which isn’t bad unless the cool sea breeze is blowing.
Samie and I did laundry this a.m. while John walked down to pick up the VCR. Then we all walked to the other end of town and got some film developed, ate lunch out and generally walked our legs off.
Danielle called tonight, her dog, Sadie has some disease.

December ‘95

*Additional notes may appear in italics after my mom’s initial journal entries.
A ladybug means you should check the comments at the bottom of the page to see what Mom has chimed in on after reading these!

December 1, Friday

We decided at 8:30 am to go ahead and go into the marina, we tied up on the end- nice and easy. So we washed her down, inside and out along with the other odds and ends that needed to be done.

December 2, Saturday

More odds and ends, took a break and went up to the parking lot at the marina for the mini swap market. They also had some kids doing dances, the traditional Mexican and also hula.
John cleaned the water maker today. We picked John and Maryann up at the airport at 5 am- took the bags back to the boat - took a taxi back to CCC—back to the boat and finally to dinner at the ‘Dock’. Renegade joined us.

December 3, Sunday

We left the marina and La Paz behind at 6:15 am. Not too much wind on our way to Los Muertos, but nice and calm. We had the current running with us and made it in 10 hours. We anchored and watched the sun go down. The ‘Sourdough Pizza’ joint is closed on Sunday, so I made cheese enchiladas.

December 4, Monday

We weighed anchor at 3:45 am under an almost full moon and began our crossing to Mazatlan. For the first several hours, it was rolly and confused seas. Just before sun up the main sail blew the bottom seam, so John is up with the flashlight (due to the fact that the moon had just set and we were in the dark) reefing the main.
Soon the seas began running all in the same direction which smoothed out the ride somewhat. We have the wind at a steady 10 to 15 knots out of the NW and seas 2 to 3 feet in the same direction which is on our port stern. This held for the full day and night and made for a beautiful sail, never even adjusting or trimming sails. We averaged 6 knots, at times 6.9 and 7.

December 5, Tuesday

The seas flattened out and the wind died there for a couple of hours just after sunrise. Then slowly shifted around to the ESE at maybe 5 to 10 knots.
36 hours later we dropped anchor in the pollution-filled air and murky water of Mazatlan.
We took the bus into town and had a wonderful dinner at “Doney’s”. We all crashed for a much needed full night’s sleep.

December 6, Wednesday

John jerry-jugged the fuel and filled up. John and Maryann went into town shopping, then John M. hiked up to the light house on the point.
We weighed anchor at 12:15 pm headed for San Blas in “no-see-em” land.
Finally – John reeled in a 39” dorado - the first of this season. Good eating!
We had a good wind until just after sunset, 10 knots of SW, we even flew the mizzen stay-sail. For the rest of the trip we had no wind, but a full moon and a beautiful night. The shrimp boats are out in full force in the area because it is so shallow. We passed through all but one, which we had to steer around, 1 out of 50 or 60 isn’t bad! John and John were on watch when we went through some pea soup fog.

Dec 7, Thursday

We motored into the estuary at San Blas around 11 am, bugs and all! We enclosed the boat in the bug netting and went into “Tony’s” to eat. We saw Jan and Norm for a bit.

December 8, Friday

John, John and Maryann went into town while Samie and I did school. John did the check-in and they all picked up a few things from Francisco. We decided to go ahead and leave on the morning tide and headed for Chacala.

En route we saw a manta ray jump out twice and do a double back flip – cool! We anchored in Chacala – John cleaned the bottom of the boat, nothing growing, only slime. Samie went swimming beside the boat.
We were all in bed and out of it by 7:30 pm.

*I don’t remember who Francisco was, maybe Mom will remember. Maybe he sold Huichol art and we were getting more masks for Mac in Tucson? 🐞

December 9, Saturday

We pulled in the anchor at 5:30 am and headed into Puerto Vallarta. No wind for this trip, only the Pacific swell. I had a small sail fish on the line, but he broke free. We scooted around Punta de Mita and it felt like we were coming home. Last season we spent 3 months in this area, mostly in La Cruz. We came into the marina slip A12- same one we had two different times last season- it is home!
We have sailed 450 miles, or there about in the last 6 days! That’s moving constantly and way too fast. We are so tired and I’m a total grump! Right now I don’t even want to move for at least a week.
Samie found Tam and they spent a couple of hours together before we went down to Angela’s to eat.

December 10, Sunday

This morning was spent getting Schyler a t-shirt and small toy boat for Christmas and putting the letters and Christmas cards that Samie and I made together for Maryann to take back to the States to mail. The other kids we will shop for as the year goes by and take home gifts in the car when we return for the summer.
Samie spent the day at True Blue swimming and having kid fun!
John and Maryann left for the airport at 12:30 or so. We have traveled about 450 miles in the last 6 days.
We have found that there was quite a bit of damage done in P.V. from the earthquake in Manzanillo last Sept. The water park is closed for major repairs, the adjoining hotel is gone- several stores have surface damage- some having structural. What gets me is there was never any mention of this in the States on the news!
We went out for pizza and took Tam with us and she spent the night.

*I remember a story from P.V. that may have been from around this time, as it sounds like there was lots of structural damage from the earthquake. Who knows if it was even true, but it was about a guy (probably a gringo) who walked into a huge pothole or something in the street and was trying to sue, saying that it should have been flagged and marked as unsafe. Supposedly the judge told him he should have been watching where he was walking and dismissed him.. I always loved that. Imagine! Paying attention to where you are going…. being aware and responsible for your own person. What a concept. 😉

December 11, Monday

John paid the “Paper Man” $20 U.S. to check in for us - this saved about 1 half day of back and forth in old town.
Miguel came by and picked up the main sail, he will restitch the whole thing- all the thread is rotten. We are paying 2 teenage boys to wax and buff out the hull on the boat. $130 U.S.- they did a very nice job.

December 12, Tuesday

We bought Samie a swimming suit and she lost it before she even wore it. She was playing up by the gate of J dock with Tam and Matt and set it down. I’m surprised, but it disappeared! She really needs a new one, so we did go buy another one, for which she paid $20 of the $60 pesos.

December 13, Wednesday

Happy B-day Colleen

We all headed into town, stopped at Dr. Conners, the dentist to see about having reverse caps put on Samie’s front teeth to bring them out in front of her bottom teeth. But with time involved we decided to wait until we return in February.
We got together with Don on Loon who we had met in Ensenada last year.

*We never ended up doing that procedure on my teeth - we eventually used spacers and an expansion plate which essentially pushed apart the two sides of the maxilla (the roof of the mouth) which allowed my upper front teeth to move outward and over my bottom teeth. After that, braces did the rest.

December 14, Thursday

We left the P.V. Marina at 8:15 am and headed for our 2nd home- La Cruz. It takes right about 2 hours to leave the harbor entrance to drop the anchor. Just outside of La Cruz bay we passed through about 4 or 5 humpback whales swimming along with us, I was able to get some of their fun on the VCR tape.
We snuck into Cruise Quarters and surprised Rosa, Jenna was still at school so we went in again later, feels like home!

December 15, Friday

We have the Christmas lights up on the topping lift. Looks really cool! Samie and I have the inside decorated, even have a small 12” tree we found in San Blas.

The storm up on the Oregon coast has caused the Northers to blow in the upper sea and a big 4 or 5 foot swell is roll’en into the bay here. We are anchored out at the far end and we can see all the inside boats climb up and over and slide down the swells, almost disappearing from where we are. The surf is really breaking and bang’en on the break wall and the beach. We went in for dinner- wonderful ribs- and did manage to make a dry landing but got hit with a couple whoppers trying to get the dink out. Such is life in La Cruz.

*One of the trippiest things is to watch another boat slip out of view you both find yourselves in the troughs on either side of a wave. It’s like playing peek-a-boo with your neighbors and their entire house. 🙈

December 16, Saturday

John serviced all the winch-drums today, the 1st time he had done that and they really needed it. Samie went in and played and swam with Jena. Peg called tonight- it was finally snowing there!

December 17, Sunday

We all went ashore this morning for the swap meet- nothing we can’t do without. So we enjoyed breakfast at Cruise Quarters.
Talked to Renegade this am, they are leaving La Paz on Tuesday and are supposedly coming here for Christmas.
John took the ‘head’ apart today and got the handle pump fixed but then had a leak where it screws back together so had to epoxy it- which meant it had to sit and dry overnight. Therefore we used the ‘ole stand by - a bucket - hey - it works!

*Just a reminder that the head is nautical lingo for the toilet. Ours would have looked something like this and we had to manually pump it in order to flush. There was a simple dry flush or wet flush, which pulled in water from outside the boat. One funny thing we would laugh at was when there was phosphorescence in the water at night, we’d flush the toilet with the lights off and the toilet would glow. lol! If you know, you know. 🐞

December 18, Monday

Happy B-day Amber.

Another brilliant fix-it job by John- the ‘head’ is ‘up and running’ again!
The wind kicked up to 18 and 20 knots today - just like last March, I hope it’s not an every day thing though, it gets old. It moved in some clouds and looked like rain but it never did fall.
Samie mailed Santa her wish list. The first letter included 49 wishes & the 2nd letter was a P.S. list- of I know not what!
This last week she has kept herself busy - never once saying she was bored or wishing for other kids. She must be trying to impress Santa as he checks his list! I hope she always stays this happy out on the ocean!
We mailed letters to Garth and Joanne- Goon and Shine.

*I’ve always been really great at entertaining myself and finding ways to keep busy. On the boat, I was typically drawing, coloring, reading or making something with my craft supplies. Some things don’t change, and if you were to ask me today what I want to do for a living - it’d be those same things!! I just want to create all kinds of art and read all the books I’ve collected and share cool things and ideas with people. I’m in the process of bringing it all to fruition. 🙃
Note my Christmas list below! (This one might actually be from ‘94, but oh well, it’s still cute!) It’s more of a ramble than a list (who, me?!) but the main requests are for a big Polly Pocket (preferable to the small ones), candles, the movie Jafar Returns, and a headset (Walkman) with “lots of rock and roll and country.” Specific tape requests for Guns and Roses, and one of my reigning all-time favorites, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. 😍 I’ve always had a pretty wide mish-mash of interests!

December 19, Tuesday

We took a taxi into P.V. this morning to exchange dollars for pesos and bought towels for Brandon’s wedding tomorrow. He is Blair and Rosa’s son, they own the Cruise Quarters. We ended up spending most of the day visiting in Cruise Quarters.
I sent a fax to Colleen at Navopache and she actually send one back. Nothing new there on the work (war) front. The snow they got on the 17th that Goon called about- ended up to be 22 inches! Glad I’m not there! Samie wishes she was!

*Here we are again with the infamous Crew’s Quarters wall, that’s myself and then Jena and I think a family member in town for the wedding. The last photo is me with one of our many attempts to keep pelicans off our bow. Otherwise they just LOVE to post up and crap all over everything. We went through several ideas before finding something that worked for more than a couple of days. I can’t seem to recall what it was, though. 🤔

December 20, Wednesday

John varnished in the cockpit this morning. This afternoon at 3 pm we went into Brandon and Olga’s wedding at Cruise Quarters, which was upstairs in the open room with a view of the bay.
There was 2 ceremonies, one Spanish and one English. The first being in Spanish which was quite different. To begin with, the magistrate types a “contract” for the couple and then finger prints them! All of this took about 30-40 minutes while they stood before him and then he read the vows.
Later was the English ceremony and after each one Brandon stomped on the glass for the Jewish custom of mazel tov.
A dinner for 60-70 people was served, a DJ setup, and played some great Mexican and American tunes, loud enough to make your body vibrate- but it was great!!
Wonderful wedding- wonderful friends!
We made a video tape of the festivities for them. We came back to the boat in a light rain and the wind and swell kicked up quite a roll out here.

December 21, Thursday

I went into P.V. with Rosa and Nancy and finished up the Christmas shopping. While in P.V. it rained buckets- John also said it did the same here in the anchorage.

December 22, Friday

Arne and Janice on Renegade pulled in here at La Cruz early this morning and anchored next to us. Arne caught and released a 150 lb marlin on their sail down from La Paz. They also got caught in a couple of squalls, but were able to sail around most of them.
John helped Jerry on Walkabout clean his batteries, put 10 gallons of fuel in the boat and had those jugs re-filled.
We all went into Dos Felipe’s for ribs tonight.

*I don’t remember much about Jerry on Walkabout, but I’m nearly certain I’d go over there sometimes with Dad to visit, and I’m nearly certain that one evening, this poor man and my father sat through some wildly off-key caroling attempts from my very excited little elf-self. 🥴
Below are samples of the lovely views we enjoyed regularly in the wide open beauty of Banderas Bay. I think I even remember that particular day with the sun cutting through the clouds in the last photo - I think it was the first time I’d really seen that affect. That, or it just put all the other times to shame! And if you imagine the quality of these photos compared to today’s and how much detail is probably missing from what we were able to catch!

December 23, Saturday

Mom and Daddy called this a.m., they are having the family Christmas dinner today. Shine was also there- Goon had to work (such is life) Shine is laid off right now.
John and Arne went with Jerry on Walkabout out to the Tres Marietas Islands fishing today. They had a record day- for booby birds, that is! Ten booby birds, one small sierra mackerel, oh well.
Arne and Janice came over and we BBQ and enjoyed the visit.
Samie lost her second 8-year molar.

December 24, Sunday

Oh what a cloudy, overcast, dreary, long day, lazy day.
We did get the sail back, Miguel restitched it and reinforced all the seams for $120 U.S.

December 25, Monday

Feliz Navidad

“Dashing through the surf
in a 10 horsepower dink,
‘ore the waves we bounce
hoping we don’t sink!
Oh Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells…”

Well, Santa found Samie again this year! She didn’t have a stocking so she hung up her red bag that has her name on it, but good ‘ole Santa left her a new stocking with a camera. She was so excited with everything and got a kick out of the crumbs Santa left when he ate a cookie she left out for him.
Samie made me a “treasure box” that is so special, I know that she put a lot of time and work into making it!
We called the kids - Shine was at Pegs- Faron, Chelle and Schyler were in Pinetop and said it was 2 degrees below 0! Woo, and we thought it was cold here at 68°! Danielle was at Jacque’s but of course still asleep so kinda “fuzzy” on the phone.
We put the sail back up. We, along with Renegade went into Cruise Quarters at 2:30 pm for the Christmas dinner- of Turkey, dressing, potatoes, gravy - the works, and pumpkin pie! Yummy feast.

*Mom still has that treasure box and I remember making it for her. 🥰 I got a new camera and was absolutely over the moon - and so began the trail of photographs that would document this weird world through my lens. 📸

December 26, Tuesday

We, along with Jerry on Walkabout took a taxi into P.V.. Samie and I stayed at the Marina while John and Jerry went down town to check out. A process that took 3 hours, going 1st to the port captain, immigration and back to the port captain.
Samie played with Tam at True Blue while I went to find Renegade who had come in to the marina this a.m. After a small shop at the commercial we waited at least 20-30 minutes for a taxi to take us back- making our day long from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm.

December 27, Wednesday

John took the dink to the beach and scrubbed down the gunky bottom, made a good haul at the market, this being fresh veggie day, and returned to dive on the boat. Only slime, the paint we put on in San Carlos is really working great.
We went into Cruise Quarters for an early dinner - our last “fix” of ribs before we return in Feb.
We heard earlier on Chubasco ham net that 3 boats have been broken into in Ixtapa Marina in broad daylight and trashed, a few things taken- probably kids- but Nanamuk was one of those boats.

*If I’m remembering correctly, Nanamuk suspected teens to be at hand, as the things that went missing had been simpler like jewelry, perfume, and maybe money, I think, whereas big-ticket items like electronics, engine parts and such were untouched.

December 28, Thursday

Ok what an adventure today began! Renegade left the marina and we pulled in the anchor after 3 weeks in La Cruz at 9:15 am on our way to Tenacatita. Leaving Banderas Bay, we saw a couple whales off in the distance, a sea turtle floating nearby as we cruised, caught (and safely released) one booby bird. No wind so far, we made it around Cabo Corrientes where we picked up 10 knots on our stern and a 3 foot or so following sea. Somewhere into the night the wind shifted to the ESE at 15 knots and laid down the swell. All in all it was a beautiful night, the sky clear and full of glittering stars. The moon is a perfect half and when it set it was a bright firey orange, startling me with the intensity as it set on the horizon.

December 29, Friday

Once the sun came up around 6 am John turned the GPS off and just started heading around the rocks into Tenacatita - or so we thought. The fix I did then was right on- but we aimed for the wrong bay. Once inside - they are both big bays that go way back in- John kept saying this doesn’t look right, I don’t remember that last season. Finally we realized we are not in Tenacatita - but the next bay over- Bahia Navidad. After we stopped laughing at our dumb navigational error we hailed Renegade on VHF- who, by the way, was partway into the right bay - and we decided it’s only 8 or 9 am (whatever) let’s just go into Manzanillo. So, ok- we put the sails back up and laugh while shaking our heads saying how dumb we feel!

Coming into Manzanillo we passed a rock out on a point that took on the shape of 3 different animals depending on the angle when we looked. One being a turtle, another a rabbit sitting and a fish - I hope the picture comes out but it’s doubtful.
We did manage to anchor in spite of all the jet skiers, small powerboats pulling skiers behind and even kayakers, not to mention a pretty hefty swell.
Just as the anchor is set, the bilge pump goes off - John goes to check, no broken hoses and he sees no water squirting in, it does it’s job and shuts down. John checks all the thru-hulls and under the floor boards - no water, so all must be well. A couple hours later, once the huge power boat left, we re-anchored back a bit, it was kinda snug. Renegade is next to us.
John is out trying to BBQ pork chops but the gas line is plugged, so I proceed to fry them inside, find out the problem is the propane tank is empty. So he changes tanks.
There must be at least 5 to 6 foot swells- huge and long- rolling in here, the surf breaking on the not-so-far-away beach is breaking so loud and fierce- it could match any beach in Hawaii. WE are rolling side to side something awful.
We traveled 179 miles in the last 29 hours since leaving La Cruz- it’s been a tiring trip- let’s hope it calms down some and we can get some much needed sleep.
Samie called Sam and Rane.

*I do believe that white rock in the video was appropriately referred to by the cruisers as “Shit Rock”. That, my friends, is why we want to keep the pelicans off the bows of our boats! The photo below is of that rock what looks like a turtle, rabbit and fish at different angles. I can see the fish and turtle here, and some features of what would lend to the rabbit at another angle.

December 30, Saturday

No rest for the weary, I woke up at 12:00 am, the wind is blowing 15-20 out of the east, we are sitting cross-ways to the swell and rolling from side to side like crazy! I notice a boat in front of us dragging, so I woke John up. The weird thing was the boat was dragging sideways into the swell and out of the anchorage. They got it under control just as it looked like from where we are that he was about up on the surf on the break wall. How frightening!
John used the head and went to flush- nope, the handle is locked up and no work! This has turned into one of those days that you can for sure do without- but it makes you realize that much more how wonderful the other 360 whatever days are!
The wind calmed down a bit and John went back to bed around 2 am- I’m wide awake, the dink is locked up alongside us and rattling so I go out to wrap the line and just as I grab it, the hook lets go from the boat- luckily I went out, could have been another - - - - !!
Today continued along as the saying goes- “Shit happens” and sometimes you can’t even flush it!! The problem with the toilet is that the entire plumbing, drain lines are plugged with ‘you-know-what’.
We took apart the whole system and John cleaned all the lines. What a disgusting job- from now on, once a month we will do the vinegar routine.
Wow, now the shit flushes!
John and Samie went in to the pool at Los Hadas, they said it was beautiful with live iguanas everywhere. I stayed on the boat and slept.

December 31, Sunday

John took apart the hour meter for the engine hours- it only works intermediately- but the little motor is gone and will have to order one.
John and Samie went to the pool again- I stayed onboard and cooked a roast with all the fixings- wonderful!
The gang from Angela came over for a while- Hal, Angie, Megan (10), Hall Jr. (2)- since they weren’t going out for a New Year’s bash, either.
I was still awake at midnight when the fireworks started going off on the hills all around “Hotel Bay”.

January ‘96

*Additional notes may appear in italics after my mom’s initial journal entries.
A ladybug means you should check the comments at the bottom of the page to see what Mom has chimed in on after reading these!

January 1, 1996, Monday

Happy New Year!

Today we all went into the pool - my 1st time off the boat since we got here - or actually since leaving La Cruz.
The pool overlooks the bay opening out into the ocean- beautiful. Those big 5-6 foot swells have calmed down to normal finally.

January 2, Tuesday

Samie had her 2nd test for this year and did good.
We all went in to the pool again; Arne and Janice joined us. And later, most of the boaters all went into town to ‘Juanigos’ for burger and the Cotton Bowl game.

January 3, Wednesday

We weighed anchor and left Manzanillo at 7:30 am. It was partially cloudy and continued to build until we had a full, thick, cottony cover overhead for the remainder of the day.
For the next several hours, we were always on the look-out for the long fishing nets that reach out for 5 or so miles around the Manzanillo area. 
We saw several huge dolphins and sail fish swimming close by.
When the sun was closing in on the horizon, the clouds opened up a space big enough to allow us a view of the big orange ball slipping away from the night and another spectacular ocean sunset.
We have not had much wind and the remainder of the trip was the same, only around 15 knots or less – mostly less. We ran the motor and kept our speed up to 6+ knots the entire trip.
The night proved to be another beautiful one once the clouds all disappeared and the stars scattered along with a nearly full moon shone down on the peaceful waters that we are floating across.
While I was on watch, a booby bird was flying around the radar and setting it off; he was looking for somewhere to land.
On the charts there is an old reported shallow spot back in 1951- it is either wrong on the chart or we found a new one. This is out of Zihuatanejo about 5 miles and the depth got down to 16 feet and was darker and somewhat turned up. It really gives ya the creeps because you don’t know where to go - left, right, forward or maybe even try to back up. But we, luckily, made it over and past the danger.

*We call nights like this “over-nighters,” since we sail through the night. The ones we took in this area along the coast were probably my favorite, as they seem fairly consistently paired with these beautiful red-orange sunsets. They say, “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight” and it was always true for us, especially here, I remember easy, peaceful and only slightly rolly nights at sea. Funny side note, baked beans and cornbread always make me think of these trips, because this was Mom’s choice dish for over-nighters. Easy to make, easy to eat, easy to clean up. This seems like an appropriate segue to also note that we used this silicone stuff to add traction to the bottom of the plates so they wouldn’t slide around when the boat was rocking. When underway and real rolly, you just hold your plate, ‘cause even if the plate stays on the table, the food can still run away!

January 4, Thursday

Manzanillo to Zihuatanejo took 33 hours total.
We came on in to the harbor and dropped our anchor at 4:30 pm next to Nanamuk, whom dinked on over and it sure was good to see them again. It was the end of November in La Paz when we last saw them.
Joe and his 1st ex-wife, now his “new” wife-to-be had flown down and are leaving to go back to the States mañana, so we went in to town, as tired as we were, to have dinner with them and Vortex, old friends from La Cruz last season.
We slept like babies tonight, there’s not even any swell in here tonight, like being in a marina.

January 5, Friday

We went in ashore again this morning and had breakfast with Joe and Donna. John checked in and checked for mail and Samie’s package Rane mailed - no luck. Samie spent the rest of the day at Nanamuk and John jerry-jugged 30 gallons of fuel to the boat. I went to work and defrosted the fridge/freezer, then laid in the sun.
Renegade came in at 2 pm, they had left Manzanillo at 5:30 am Thursday.
We talked to Steven on the ham tonight and he phone-patched us in to Danielle and Mom.

January 6, Saturday

Sam and I did two school lessons today and then we all went to the beach along with Nanamuk and Renegade. The kids all played in the surf, riding their boogie boards in on the waves. We watched the 49ers and Packers play football at a restaurant/bar on the beach - great place to be! Packers won.
After talking to Steve on the ham we went into town for dinner along with Arne and Janice.

January 7, Sunday

Everyday it’s getting a little warmer, it hits 90°, which isn’t bad if there’s a breeze.
John tried fishing from the dink out off the point- the fish’en was great, just the catch’en was no good.
Janelle came over to play with Sam for a bit, then we all went into the beach and played in the surf, which is starting to increase some.
Another beautiful day in paradise!

*I guess we dubbed this beautiful yellow house as our dream home - isn’t she a beaut! 😍 Next, you can see La Ropa Beach across the bay. Finally, lil’ ol me, probably watching Mom load a new roll of film into the camera, as I could tell this was the first photo on the roll. Who remembers those “starter shots” you’d take to get the roll going?! It was the worst to realize you flubbed a great shot because the film hadn’t wound far enough and half the photo was overexposed or cut off!

January 8, Monday

Happy Birthday Danielle!! #20

John, Samie, Nanamuk and Renegade went snorkeling, I stayed aboard for some quiet time. Renegade came over for dinner.

January 9, Tuesday

I mailed off post cards, another “lazy” type day. We went in with Nanamuk for dinner at “Rubin’s”. John spent the day in the engine room, cleaning and etc.

 *I am loving hearing the radio conversations in the background of these videos. What you hear in this video is one of the morning nets, which most major cruising ports took part in - a way for cruisers to connect and help each other out. You can ask for advice about boaty stuff or where to find things in town, look for rides further into town or even to the next port, you can barter and trade, the list goes on. It’s one of the random things I miss the most! It was a comforting sense of community and a great way to start the day!
I found this most excellent promo video for the Crown Odyssey while I was looking up info on the ship. Looks like it was built in 1987 and at this time when we came across her, ownership was transferring from Kloster to Norwegian Cruise Line and was renamed Norwegian Crown just a few months later.

January 10, Wed

We got back some beautiful pictures, forever reminders of the spectacular sunsets and bays that we are so lucky to be traveling along and enjoying.
Janice and I went into town to have a girl-friend day and we walked our little legs off, there sure is a lot to this town - the only thing we can see that’s missing is that for such population there is no major food market. The guys and Samie joined us and we found a wonderful pizza joint, “La Perla” it, like “Rubin’s” is surrounded by potted plants and trees with thatching and bamboo. Beautiful!

January 11, Thursday

This afternoon was spent at the southwest beach, Playa Los Gatos, for a cruiser’s potluck. We are of the “Class of ‘94” and therefore no longer “freshmen”. This year’s “freshmen” are calling themselves “No-Clue class of ‘95” – but they did put on a great potluck.
The Los Gatas Beach is set up real nice with a big circular palapa on the point. The beach landing can be tricky, as a BIG surf comes in and it is real shallow and rocky, but everyone did a-ok.
Janice from Renegade found out today that her special uncle has passed away.
We got together on Renegade and all devoured about 4lbs of shrimp tonight.

January 12, Friday

Today at 1:30 pm we, along with Nanamuk pulled in the anchors and sailed out to Isla Grande, on the way trying once again to hook up with a dorado- but once again- failure. Nanamuk did hook one, but only for a second before he vanished- along with the lure. We did see a whale and had a couple of dolphins swimming under the bow.
We came on around the corner of Isla Grande at 4:30 pm and dropped the anchor in 16 feet of fairly clear water. After being in the pristine waters in the Sea of Cortez, we were spoiled and nothing here even comes close. But it is calm, not much swell and a palapa-lined beach is just a short dink ride away. The island is covered in green shrubbery and some form of a cactus- there are supposedly deer roaming about, also.
Last night we made contact with Steve on the ham and did a phone patch to Danielle. She is trying to fly into Mazatlan the end of March and meet us there. Tonight, we were supposed to patch a call through to Chelle, but Steve never came up on the radio.

January 13, Saturday

John dove on the bottom of the boat and cleaned half, then we all went into the beach.
This beach caters to the tourists that they ferry over from the ‘Club Med’ on the mainland. All the English-speaking Mexicans at the 3 or 4 different groups of palapas and it’s rich with competition. We walked the 150 or so feet to the other side of the beach which is, in fact, the other side of the island. The south side being better for snorkeling and the north for swimming and all those other annoying water toys that the tourists insist on causing havoc with!
Anyway, the gang all went snorkeling while I stayed on the beach soaking up the 80 plus degree sunshine.
Later the 3 kids dug a big hole or “moat” as they called it, in the sand and would sit in there waiting for a wave to come ashore and fill it. They also swam next to the boat- all in all they were in the water a good 3 hours.
No Steve on the radio again tonight.
John and Rob went night snorkeling looking for “creepy critters” (lobster) with no luck- it’s a good thing we have meat in the freezer! This was the first time John has gone at night and he said he loved it. I think he’s crazy. Oh, the kids found a small, 7 or 8 inch sea turtle floating between the boats. We held him for a while, his shell was a burnt orange and dark brown color. Cute little thing.

*I seem to remember Jelly and Alan maybe going with the Dads that night, because I seem to remember being too chicken to join and then hearing that they enjoyed it. For me, I was still getting used to day-time snorkeling, I think night-time would have crept me right back out of the water. My imagination always ran wild at what could be just beyond the sight-line under water.

January 14, Sunday

Samie and I have been going at school real hard and took today off, so she went to the beach early with Alan and Janelle before the crowds of tourists came in and “took over”. Then we all climbed in the dinks and headed off across the bay to the mainland beach which, by the way, is probably 5 or so miles long and practically deserted.
We also saw about 3 crocodiles in a small river that runs through the area. We made it back to the dink – all body parts included, not that we got too close to the crocs, but still – and putted on around the bay trolling a line behind, but once again the dorado have eluded us and refuse to come to dinner.
After “work” (reading on deck while soaking in the rays) I took a dip in the cool water surrounding the neighborhood.
The lack of dorado forced us to grill beef steak on the BBQ tonight.

*I’m not sure if this is the place where we saw the crocodiles, but it seems likely.
I love Mom’s description in the last two sentences. “Work”, swimming around the neighborhood & being forced to eat grilled steak!? What a rough life we led! 😉
In the photos below, you'll see the beach we moseyed along on, our beach landing as well as what I believe was a tactic to weigh the dinghies down in case the tide started creeping up before we got back? 🤔 (If it came in too far, it could float the dinghies away! No bueno!) Next you’ll see Rob pointing to something in the sand - there were slithery little snake trails! After our adventure on land, you’ll see our views around the bay while we trolled for fish. 🐞

January 15, Monday

Everyone went snorkeling today except me, I took advantage of the quiet and worked on a story I’m writing- or trying to write. Nanamuk came over for happy hour and the kids watched a movie.
Steve ran a phone patch to Sam and Rane, no the Christmas package hasn’t been returned.
Also talked to John R.

*Of all the packages we had mailed to us over the years, I think only two were lost. This one and another that was a bundle of letters from multiple people that sadly got lost somewhere. I was so sad, wondering what stories or even photos I was missing from my friends and wondering where they had disappeared to. Otherwise, our success rate was fantastic! I loved our mail packages, they were like mini Christmases throughout the season and gave us lots to do in the days after, responding to everyone and sealing/stamping everything to take in and mail off. 🥰

January 16, Tuesday

We weighed anchor at 9:30 this sunny morning and headed out around the point in route back to Zihuatanejo. The sight that greeted us was so spectacular! A single humpback whale was performing not too far from us. Last season we were hesitant to get too close to the giant creatures of the deep, but this season brings us actually heading straight for them and even circling back for more. The magnificent creature allowed us to watch a beautiful display of breaching, slapping his dorsal fin as he waved good morning and played within camera view for at least 30 minutes. I got some fairly decent video, although it’s not easy with the rocking of the boat and the whale sometimes diving and coming up elsewhere.
The remainder of the motor- no wind- was uneventful- again, no willing seafood would attach itself to our hooks. By noon we were re-anchored in the bay of Zihuatanejo. We went into town in search of rotisserie chicken, but after walking our legs until they ached, we settled for a so-so pizza.

 *This humpback played and jumped for the longest time of any whales we ever saw out there! We circled back around and got closer for a bit - I want to say it was at least a full hour’s experience coming up on him, hanging around, and eventually sailing off to Zihuat and watching him as his slashes waned father off into the distance. I remember wanting so badly to stay in sight of him, I could have watched all day. I wished and prayed so hard for him to come along with us! 🐞

January 17, Wednesday

We had breakfast in town with Arne and Janice and dropped off the laundry. We all went back later for a good pizza and of course ice cream.

January 18, Thursday

Samie and I “ditched” school and we all went in to ‘Christmas’ shop for the kids and got some veggies at the market.
John and Samie went over to Owen’s Beach for the afternoon while I enjoyed being alone.
We talked to Steve on the ham. He did a phone patch to Chelle and Mom. All is well - Andy and Janet are expecting again the end of August.

January 19, Friday

John went in to check out.
Samie spent the afternoon and evening on Nanamuck while John and I enjoyed an evening and dinner in town alone.  

*I wish I had more info on this square rig so I could look it up and find out the details! We must not have been too curious about it at the time.

January 20, Saturday

Happy B-day Janell S.

John and Samie went into town to get a few things – eggs, bread, milk, etc. I stayed on the boat - didn’t feel too good all day.
Last night when we were in town I saw John on Hawkeye with who I thought was Elizabeth from last year on Absolute but she was gone before I could say anything. Talked to John on Hawkeye this morning and sure enough it was her. She made it to Florida on Absolute and worked her way back to Mexico. She is back-packing this area again. I wish we could have talked to her but we left today at 10:45 am for Isla Grande. We motored with only this job out. AGAIN no fish.
John cleaned the waterline on the boat. While cleaning the rudder and prop, he discovered we had lost our zinc. Arne on Renegade had an extra, so we will replace it for him in P.V.

*I will have to be reminded what the zinc is for. When I tried to look it up, I found zinc plates at West Marine to protect a metal from galvanic corrosion, probably having to do with some metal components attached to the hull for some type of reader or intake.
The video below is from Nanamuk, who gave us a copy of the footage a couple months later, in March. I’m confused about the date in the video and lack of reference from Mom about the trip whatsoever, but she does say she wasn’t feeling good, so maybe she just plumb forgot.

January 21, Sunday

John went swimming and put the new zinc on. After school we, along with Arne and Janice went to the beach.
Samie and Janice rode on one of the big water tricycles, 50 pesos for 40 minutes. Nanamuk came in and anchored and the kids rowed the dink over to the beach so the 3 younger beach bums made more sandcastles and moats.

*50 pesos should have been around 5 bucks. I remember paddling with Janice and having so much fun. What a treat that we could enjoy the beach before the crowds came! We were truly spoiled in nearly always having relative privacy in our enjoyment of these beautiful places.
lol, our boat looks like we have 3 masts here. Silly.

January 22, Monday

We weighed anchor at 5:00 am leaving Isla Grande behind in the dark with only the stars to light the heavens. Out about 3 to 5 miles a panga comes zipping past us in the dark. Those small crafts do not show up on radar and it scared us as he passed only a hundred yards or so to our port.
The sun rose behind us and our seas were lumpy and confused, having a 3-foot choppy swell, it was like riding a rocking horse. Within a few hours the ocean was flat and glassy. Then, once again the wind picked up to 15-20 knots and it was a bumpy ride for the last 2 hours on in to Buffadaro Bluff.
We are using a separate tape for filming Nanamuk and got some great shots of them under sail, bouncing across the blue ocean with the sun reflecting shimmery sails in the water. They are doing the same for us and were able to get on film John bringing in a 6 foot there-about sail fish. It only took him about 20 minutes. My fish was too big to eat so we released him, which was not real easy but not terribly difficult either. John had to gaff him in the lower lip while I cut the steel liter – we lost the hook but saved the lure.
The wind has been blowing from the west and the anchorage is open to the south so it’s fairly calm in here. We dropped the hook at 5:00 pm, a full 12 hours to travel 70 miles.
We also saw 3 huge jelly fish swim under us, several little crabs skimming the surface and another sail fish dancing on his tail maybe 7 or 8 times just beside the boat.

*Above you’ll see the sunrise after leaving Isla Grande, as well as the sailfish we let go. Next are some shots of the galley, showing how our stove oven is made to rock with the boat in order to stay level. We were leaning heavy to the right in the first photo, and back to level in the second. Lastly, a calm evening anchored at Buffardero Bluff.

January 23, Tuesday

John went into town, it was a walk up a hill but a lot bigger than it would appear. The afternoon was spent at the beach. Getting there was not as easy as most places. We had to anchor the dink out and swim a couple hundred yards through the rising swell that built into great waves. Or at least they look big when they come crashing down right on you. Once we made it in the kids built palm huts with dried palm fronds while the big kids (adults) rode the waves in on the boogie boards.
John swam out to the dink but Samie and I walked around to the other end of the beach to a make-shift dinghy dock where John picked us up. We had Happy Hour at Nanamuk and watched the tape of us under sail and bringing in the big catch yesterday. You get a whole different perspective on your boat when seeing it on tape. It was really cool.
Talked to Steve and he tried to patch us through to Goon but the line was busy AGAIN! And Danielle wasn’t home.

January 24, Wednesday

We left beautiful Buffadaro Bluff behind this morning at sunup- 7 am headed for Maruata. Out from the point a few miles, the wind kicked up to 15-20 knots from the north but only lasted about 20 minutes before it settled down to 5-10 knots. It was a bouncy, swelly ride with no fish nibbling at the lures. For the last hour in the breeze we went back up to 20 knots as we made our way in and anchored at Maruata at 2 pm. Renegade was here, they had left just behind us at Isla Grande straight for Manzanillo but had a bad night, taking waves over the dodger, so had spent the day here to rest up before heading out at 6 pm tonight.
Another Islander Freeport 41 came in and anchored this afternoon. This is their 1st season out- don’t remember the boat name. They came over for happy hour along with Rob and the kids, Grace is not feeling too good.
John bought 4 small lobsters at the beach and had spaghetti with them for dinner.

January 25, Thursday

Happy B-day Grace

Nanamuk and ourselves all went to the beach and walked around to the beautiful beaches with lots of blow holes and VERY steep beaches that were banging in huge rollers- no swimming here. But we sat and visited and watched nature perform with the crescendo of breaking waves meeting the sandy beach.
The kids came back to the boat with us while Rob and Grace stayed behind for some time alone.
Oh- we also walked the mile or so to town, what there is of one- not even any bread, let alone ice.
We had the Nanamuk crew over for an early B-day dinner for Grace.
We both weighed anchor at 5:30 pm headed on in to Manzanillo. The swell out here has calmed down to a foot with an occasional 2-footer. Nice 10 knots breeze just barely off our nose all night. Passed 5 or 6 big freighters, only 1 being in as close as 1.5 miles off to port.
Had 1 big power boat headed straight at us with no lights visible until we steered around him at half a mile off - he must have been doing around 15-20 knots- dumb shit!
We had a half moon with us until around midnight when it sank into the ocean the color of burning coals. When there are no lights from a town and no moon, the stars shine down even more brilliantly and in greater numbers.
The night was an easy and peaceful one.

January 26, Friday

We made our way through the fishing nets and around pangas outside of Manzanillo in the dark before the sun came up. When we came into the bay I called Goon before she went off to school. She sounded good and happy, she likes George now - no more Billy.
We came on in and anchored almost where we were last time, same as Renegade.
John did take Samie to the pool for a bit, but not for long. He helped Arne get the new halyard up for their genoa that frayed and broke.
We were so tired, it was a couple of naps and we were still out like babies at 8:30 pm.
Oh - Danielle called and she and maybe Goon will try to fly out to Mazatlan end of March- Schyler is 8 months and wearing size 3 and 4 toddler – what a chunk!
Ok - the poem I wrote for Grace on her Birthday went like this:

A friendship in Los Muertos was made,
Hence memories that will never fade.
Good fortune was ours along with luck,
On the warm April day we met Nanamuk.

Ships may come and ships may go,
Under the sun’s warm yellow glow.
Ships will pass in the night,
Beneath the soft moonlight.

But ‘friend-ships’ are made to share,
Therefore we sail as a pair.
Up and down the Mexican coast,
Ocean creatures as our host.

Thoughts of Jelly, Al, Rob and Grace
Will always bring a smile to our face.
And when the sailor’s wind does blow us apart,
This friendship we treasure will forever warm our hearts.

*Awe, I love Mom’s poems and stories. I have her looking for her stories now, so that we can share those here, too!
I remember being bummed when Peggy and Billy split up, I really liked them together. But, at 17, such is young love!
Getting into harbor in the early morning is a toughie - you don’t want to sleep all day and be up all night, so you try to get through as best you can and CRASH OUT early as hell!

January 27, Saturday

Back to a normal day, Sam and I did 2 days of school. John changed the oil in the main engine and the generator, changed all the zincs and took in the heat exchanger to be checked and fixed.
After all this work was done, we went to the pool and the kids fed the iguanas that swim on the man-made island in the pool. One iguana even swam right in the pool.

*This pool was so beautiful. It was so cool to see the iguanas on the little islands - can you see the one in front of Alan in the second photo? The lady to the right of us has a hibiscus flower, which you could feed them! I do remember them swimming across to the other islands and whatnot, it was really neat.

January 28, Sunday

We did a little review on Spanish this morning – it has pretty much fallen to the wayside – seems like there’s always something else to do and it’s tough enough to just do school.
Then us and Renegade took a bus in to the commercial and did a big shop. It’s been since P.V. the end of December that we’ve really bought more than the basics.  Of course, we took a taxi back.
John took Sam to the pool for a while. Then we Arne and Janice to the Guadalajara Bar and Grill to watch the Super Bowl – Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburg Stleelers. Great place, lots of people and noise. We all had tags on for the teams you were roote’n for and when they got a touch-down you got a free beer! Lots of beer – Cowboys 27 -Steelers 17 – Lots of fun! The commercials were great – didn’t want to miss ‘em.

*We wanted to learn Spanish, but, just as Mom said, it was hard enough to keep up on school in the midst of all this fun to be had! Also, so many people already spoke English, anyway. I swear I do remember at least a couple times though, Dad ended up drawing things in the sand to communicate something. We got along fine, but I really do wish we’d have learned more - especially for me at the time, I would have soaked it up - it’s so much easier when your brain is still developing.
It feels worth noting that we “of course” took a taxi back because we needed room for all our groceries - especially being enough to supply 5 people! I hadn’t thought about those crowded rides home in a while! Don’t forget all the fun of unloading and lugging everything down to the beach, into the dinghies, executing a (hopefully dry) take-off from the beach and hauling everything onto the boat before storing it all away! Phew! I’m tired just writing about it -no wonder we were all in such great shape! All part of the cruising life! Definitely a worthy trade-off, I do say!
The photos below are from the Guadalajara Bar and Grill for Superbowl. I’m not sure why, but I was always nervous about people statues! I didn’t like sitting next to them. I’m pretty sure any other kind of statue was fine, but these types always gave me the heebie-geebies. 🤷‍♀️

January 29, Monday

John did his usual ‘busy work’ around the boat this morning while we did school. We got the extra heat exchanger back all repaired.
Spent the afternoon at the pool. Jelly spent the night.
Short and simple day!

January 30, Tuesday

John changed the water maker filters. Renegade left this morning for Tenacatita. Samie is extra tired today – I guess her and Janelle woke up in the night to talk. Spent the afternoon at the pool.
What a hard life!
Talked to Faron; Chelle was at school. He said Schyler weighs 28lbs and he walks around things holding on. When he falls down, he tries to get up, but can’t quite do it.
Goon called, she’ll see what she can do about coming to Mazatlan with Danielle the end of March. Chelle and Faron will try to come out there, too.

*Can you spot the Wandrin’ Star and Nanamuk in the bay here in these photos?! We were always full of pride seeing our girl out there in the bay, happily anchored and ready for our return. She always stood right out to me, like a little beacon of safety, always ready to carry us along on the next leg of our adventure… She was our world, truly! Our axis with which we were tethered to. Your vessel eventually really feels like a family member. 🥰 I still miss her all the time! 😭
Look at these beautiful views! I would love to go visit there now and experience this place from a different perspective!

January 31, Wednesday

We weighed anchor at 8:30 am and went across the bay to Manzanillo and topped of the fuel tanks. Easy to get to. We were back in the bay and underway at 11:00 am. Around 1:00 pm the wind kicked up at 20 knots – you guessed it – right on our nose. By the time we rounded the point and headed in to Navidad we were taking spray on the top sides. We made our way around the break water past the shoal in to the lagoon where we are anchored fore and aft in what will one day be a small marina. 12 or 13 boats in here. The water is as flat as an ice-skating rink.
Oh yeah, the usual no fish, but caught 1 green-footed booby bird. He was almost drowned when John got him in, so he put him in the cockpit to recoup before throwing him back.
Talked to Steve for a minute. Roach called, they may fly in to P.V. the end of February.
Talked to Princess Erika finally, they are in Tenacatita and headed this way tomorrow.

*The poor bird really was almost drowned and had to throw up all that water and get his bearings back. I think we kept the lines in after that.

February ‘96

*Additional notes may appear in italics after my mom’s initial journal entries.
A ladybug means you should check the comments at the bottom of the page to see what Mom has chimed in on after reading these!

February 1, Thursday

Samie passed her test today. She missed 6 out of 11 pages.
Princess Erika came in to the lagoon here in Navidad about 1 pm today. It’s good to see them again. We all went in to town and checked it out. Nice little typical Mexican town. There sure is a lot of damage from the earth quake last October – lots of repairs going on.
We all went back in later for dinner at Banana’s – great Italian food!

February 2, Friday

Ground Hog Day – I wonder if that furry critter saw his shadow or not?
Today on Chubasco net, the weather guy, Tom (Tango Papa) said it’s been the coldest winter in the last 25 years. Minneapolis shut down all the schools because of the cold. I think he said a high of -12°. The mountains in Arizona were getting snow and it was showing all the way from Salt Lake, Utah to New York.
And I thought our 60° here was cold! At least our days warm up in the low 80°s.
John waxed the outside of the Wandrin’ Star – now she shines.
Nanamuk came in about 1 pm and anchored next to us. We took the bus into Melaque with Princess Erika.
There is damage from the October earthquake there, also, but not as severe. We caught up with one of the mail packets Mom sent down – mine and Samie’s B-day presents.
We all had lunch at Philomena’s Los Pelicanos on the beach at Melaque.
The wind has really picked up, the water in the bay is full of scattered white caps. Back on the boat in the lagoon, the boats are danc’en a bit on the double anchors, but it’s still flat, even though the knot meter is spinn’en at 10 to 20. Finally around 7:30 it laid down.

*Tango Papa is in reference to Tom’s call-sign on the HAM radio.

February 3, Saturday

John went into town for dinghy has while Sam and I doubled up on school. Something we’re gonna have to start doing if we’re gonna finish before we make it back to the States.
I borrowed Grace’s heavy-duty sewing machine and re-stitched all of the canopy over the cockpit where the thread was rotting away.
I called Mom to wish her Happy Birthday on the 6th in case the phone doesn’t work when we head around Tenacatita in the morning.

 *If you look closely, you can see me and Mom in the cockpit here!

February 4, Sunday

At 8:30 this morning, when we released both anchors and left the lagoon at Navidad and headed around the point into the next bay, which is Tenacatita. There was not much wind, and of course what little bit there was – was right on our nose, so we didn’t even bother with the sails.  Still no fish in this 3-hour trip. The first time we dropped anchor, it wouldn’t set. So we moved in a little further and it held. Princess Erika is next to us.
John and Daryl tried fishing – no luck. It was a lazy day. We went into the beach for a while.

February 5, Monday

It was a rather windy day here in the anchorage. Nanamuk left Navidad a little late in the morning and coming around into Tenacatita had 20 & 25 knots of NW winds. They buried the bow a couple times and were looking for fish on deck with each wave that came aboard. Not a good day to be moving North.
The Princess Erika gang came over for Happy Hour.

February 6, Tuesday

Happy B-day, Mom

After school we, along with most everybody here in the bay dinghied over to La Manzanilla, clear across the bay, 2.5 miles for “Gringo Days.” If it’s flat and no swell, you can open it up and do about 25-30 mph in the hot rod dink. But once any wind at all blows, there’s a good swell and chop that slows ya down and gets ya wet. The landing wasn’t so bad, but our exit was not very graceful, we were drenched and so was everything in the dink. Oh, the joys of beach landings!
Anyway, “Gringo Days” didn’t turn out to be much this year. I guess in years past, it was a big party given by the Gringos for the Mexicans in appreciation for all the help they give. With a BBQ, all the free beer, rodeo and dancing. But this year the town is so poor and devastated from the earthquake and tidal wave that hit in October ’95 that it just wasn’t much.
We hung around from 11 till 3:30 or so.
Nanamuk needed dinghy gas and the “local Pemex” was in someone’s house where she siphoned it from a 20-gallon jug one liter at a time. The cost was 3 pesos per liter!
We found a new life jacket for Samie - $75 pesos, about $10 U.S.

*It’s a bit hard to tell in the photo, but if you look closely in the second, you can see a crumbled wall and other piles of rubble by the palm trees and house - damage from the earthquake.  

February 7, Wednesday

The day started out cloudy, the wind picked up 15-20 knots out of the south from 8 am till around 1 pm. One of those gloomy, stay-under-cover-on-the-boat mornings. But the afternoon was spent on the beach in the sun with only a light breeze.
We talked to Steve and he ran a phone patch to Sam and Rane. Samie talked to Sam and told Regan Happy B-day this Friday. Rane and Regan were gone though.
We had Happy Hour at Princess Erika and didn’t get back until 8:30 – so the pork chops will wait till mañana – soup tonight. I will never get used to eating so late.

February 8, Thursday

John and Daryl went across the bay to La Manzanilla for ice and other goodies. Samie and I took a break from school. We all three and Megan from Angela went up the estuary in the dink. I had the video camera going and filmed the whole trip. Then we all played on the beach and ate one of the famous Jose’s fish, shrimp and bacon rolls.
Nanamuk came over for Happy Hour.
We talked to Steve and Danielle through phone patch.

*If you check the map linked with “the beach,” you should be able to see the estuary that we took there from La Vena.

February 9, Friday

Happy B-day #3 Regan

Samie made a sign and hung a balloon for Regan.
The afternoon was spent at the beach. Samie and Megan were riding in some pretty good waves on their boogie boards. Megan spent the night.

*I have some cute memories with Megan at this beach, playing on our boogie boards in the small waves and getting creeped out seeing things in the sand but not being able to tell what it was - our imaginations would go wild! We also were big fans of Mrs. Doubtfire at the time and I remember some silly songs we’d sing, having to do with this dinosaur scene toward the end of the movie. Watching it now, the raptor rap immediately jumped out, so I know that’s the one we were playing off of. I’ll take this little moment to appreciate the absolute magic of Robin Williams and the many beautiful roles of his which captivated me in one way or another growing up. I think most of my generation would full-heartedly agree that our childhoods were forever brightened by his existence. 🥰

February 10, Saturday

John went across the bay for more ice - none to be had. John and Samie went to shore while I stayed on the boat.
Samie and Alan got in an argument and she had to come back to the boat.
John’s been painting the toe-rail.

*I wonder what Alan and I got in such an argument about?! I don’t remember any of that.
Below, Amy from Princess Erika was out practicing her windsurfing - whew! Looks like a helluva workout!

February 11, Sunday

After the morning rituals, we all went into the beach. Right now there are about 7 ‘kid-boats’ in the bay and they were all on the beach for a get-together. I think that’s the most there has ever been all together. We are the only boat with only 1 kid, the rest have 2 or 3. There are a few teenagers, even. All the 9-year-olds and down had sand ball and sand castle building contests.
The big propane tank ran out of gas again – it lasted only 6 weeks this time. I guess we’ve been eating on the boat a lot! Since leaving Zihuatanejo, there hasn’t been much of anywhere to eat out.

*It was always exciting to find other “kid-boats" - especially a whole group of them! Age wasn’t usually too much of an issue, the “big kids” never seemed put-off about helping entertain the younger kids - we all just hung out.

February 12, Monday

Woo! Samie starts times tables today. John went fishing – no luck.
We spent the afternoon at the beach. John bought some shrimp from Raul at his palapa and his son-in-law from Idaho onboard the boat.
Still no Steve on the radio – it’s been since Thursday.

February 13 – Tuesday

John caught several fish up the river this morning, snook and red snapper.
We spent the afternoon on the beach again.
Every night at the hotel on the other side of the bay, they play music. So, along with the sound of waves hitting the beach, we hear either rock, Mexican, ballet – tonight it is country. The ballet is the one that really strikes us as something extraordinary.

February 14, Wednesday

Samie remembered Valentine’s Day, she made Valentines and put them all around the boat.
John went with Rob across the bay to get dinghy has and hit the market. Then he took Alan up the river to fish – no luck today.
John and Samie went to the beach – I stayed on the boat.

February 15, Thursday

As we hauled in the anchor and set out for Careyes at 8:30 this morning, it was somewhat reminiscent of San Diego weather. Cool and clammy and a low haze to the horizon. Nanamuk and Angela are also sailing north with us. I brought in a 15 or 20lb crevalle jack – it was the first time I’d played with one to bring him in – fun.
We saw a whale breach a couple of times. Leaving Tenacatita Bay, there were thousands of 4 or 5 inch jellyfish.
It was about 12:30 pm when we made Careyes. Once inside, we circled around a few times, trying to decide if we wanted to stay here. It’s a beautiful spot, but small and open with the waves refracting off all the surrounding islands and reefs. Alas, we chose to keep moving north to Chamela.
While circling, I got a full panorama of the bay on video.
It was another hour and a half into Chamela and the hook was set at 2:30 pm.
The most wind we had all day was 5 to 8 knots, but by 4:30 it was blow’en down over the mountains out of the west at 15 to 20 knots. We’re sure glad we were inside. John and Samie and the rest of the gang went to the beach.
The word is out that dink motors have been known to disappear and be sold elsewhere – so we lock ours up on the back rail onboard and hoisted the dink up, also.
The wind finally settled down around 8 pm.
Still no Steve on the ham.

*It was mostly rare to have issues with petty theft, but the cruisers were real good about watching out for one another when necessary.

February 16, Friday

Samie passed another test today. The only thing she has trouble with is telling time.
She helped me make her B-day cake for tomorrow.
They all took off to the beach. Chamela isn’t too cruiser-friendly around the beach and I’ve just stayed on the boat and enjoyed the quiet.
Nanamuk came over for Happy Hour and we all decided it would be nicer to sail, or motor, actually, the 2 miles to Isla Colorado for the B-day party.
The wind blew 20 knots from the south most of the day.

*The comment about me having trouble telling time cracks me up, as it would appear I still have issues in this department! 😅 iykyk

February 17, Saturday

Happy Birthday #9 Samie

After a pancake breakfast, we set out at 10 am for Isla Colorado’s deserted beach.
Nanamuk took their own boat, and the gang from Angela rode out with us. The wind blew from the south – that along with the north swell rolling in made for a rolly anchorage and surfy beach landing.
Once everyone was ashore, the party began. Samie got a lot of nice gifts from everyone. We had hot dogs and cake.
The island was an old pirate’s hide-away many years ago. Too bad we didn’t find any treasures!
We all came back to the north anchorage in Chamela and the kids played here for a couple of hours.
Yesterday I bruised my first finger somehow and it’s all swollen and real hard to write.
Samie says it was a perfect birthday!
All day I had the feeling that something was wrong at home with the kids and wished the phone worked.
Still no Steve.
Looks like rain tonight – but none ever fell.

*Ah, the delightful awkwardness of the early home video cam! The majority of people were in no way used to being filmed in any way, and typically took to hiding from the camera in awkwardness. I feel like I mimicked this behavior after seeing the adults all be shy, ‘cause I initially was excited about the camera and didn’t think any thing of being in front of it. I would later get over this, quickly and spend the next 4 or 5 years toting a video camera around and documenting anything that struck my fancy and experienced many friends do the same shy dance in front of my lens. “Why are you filming?” - Everyone was always so suspicious. I don’t think there was any real answer beyond curiosity, entertainment and enjoying documenting life from my perspective.
Oh my goodness, the four of us kids - so young! This was a really great birthday, we all had a great time. Lol, I remember Alan and Janelle using excessive tape as a joke to give me a challenge and I was hoping for laughter after my comment about it - lol - delivery is everything. I’m pretty positive I still have the little heart that Megan made for me. ❤

February 18, Sunday

Samie is learning her times tables real well. It was a rather lazy day. John changed the impeller on the sump pump and went into town – a mile and a half walk one way – to get ice and such.
Kids all went to the beach. We did talk to Steve tonight. Brenda said Danielle called yesterday and said Jason F. fell off the ski lift and is paralyzed from the waist down. This happened yesterday, so I guess that was my bad feeling and Danielle needed us. We talked to Chelle on phone patch, but Danielle was asleep. So when we get to P.V. we’ll call and see how he is.

*Isn’t it crazy how we just know sometimes??

February 19, Monday

We left Chamela at 7 am when the sun was just starting to light the sky. Nanamuk left at 5:30 to get a head start. As it ended up, the wind and current running with us were good and they actually beat us into Ipala by an hour or so.
The wind started out at 10-12 knots out of the NNE and was nice. We saw a couple mantas jumping and 2 whales frolicking towards shore. John caught a huge fish or shark – we thought – he had a hell of a time getting it in. What it ended up being was a medium sized bonita that was hooked on it’s side, thus increasing the pull and weight on the line to where it felt like 100 lbs.
We had a couple hours of no wind and flat seas until it shifted around to the NW and kicked up to 20-25 knots. John finally dropped the mizzen and I hanked in the jib some. The seas were choppy and building along with no-so-great memories of last year’s Mazatlan to La Paz crossing. We were getting some splash up on the deck and about 4-foot waves, but nothing like before. We had maybe 2 hours of this before we were able to pull into Punta Ipala and get some rest. There is a small fishing village here, but nothing else. It’s a small anchorage with a lot of rocks jutting out all around. The hills were brown and dry but still a pretty place.
We had the anchor set at 3:30 pm, rested up and got ready to leave at midnight to round Cabo Corrientes if the wind dies down.

*“Hanking” in the jib would mean to furl it in and make it smaller so it catches less wind. As is the point with reefing the main and trimming the sails - it’s all about adjusting to the wind and swell.

February 20, Tuesday

The wind has died off and we, along with Nanamuk pulled in the anchors at midnight and headed out. We had between 10 and 20 knots out of the north – lumpy seas – but not a bad night at all. We were well into Banderas Bay when the sun came up at 7 am.
The sky is cloudy and very hazy, still a 15-knot breeze blow’en on our nose. It looks and feels like winter!!
We went into the marina in P.V. – slip B11 – a new one for us. We got here at 10:30 am and Nanamuk came in next to us an hour later. As tired as we were, we were anxious to give the boat a good fresh-water wash down. John did the top-sides while I worked below. Samie, Jelly and Alan played on the dock and then watched a movie here.
Don and Judy from Loon came by for a visit and brought Samie some Christmas and birthday gifts.
Talked to Faron (Chelle was at school). Schyler is walking around things and gets into everything (potatoes at that moment). Mom called – all is well. Talked to Goon – she’s doing good, quit her job at K-Mart and is looking for one in Snowflake. She said Shine moved to Prescott and is living with someone from Young, Az and they work for a company laying phone and TV cable lines.
Danielle wasn’t home.

February 21, Wednesday

Janice came over at 9:30 this morning and John had to wake me up! I guess I was so exhausted and plain ‘ole wore out! But 5 minutes after she got here she had to leave, there was a boat on fire at the haul-out ramp just behind Renegade. But they got the flames under control – sadly the power boat was lost.
Since it was so late before I got moving, we skipped school one more day.
John cleaned the dink until it was like new and painted the floor boards. He also repainted the lengths of feet on the anchor chain.
I went with Grace and Linda to Commercial.
We went into Angela’s with Arne and Janice for dinner.
Oh, Danielle called this morning. They were doing surgery on Jason Fish’s back today, but they didn’t give him much hope of ever walking again – sad. Otherwise, she is doing good and still planning to come out to Mazatlan in March.

*It was so sad to hear about Jason, I don’t think he was able to walk again, but I think he did everything he could to try.
I was probably more than happy to let Mom sleep in, hoping we might skip school! I don’t remember exactly what time we usually got started, but I’m pretty sure the HAM nets started around 6 am, and with all that background RF noise, sleeping in is unlikely (at least for me, being within much closer range than Mom in the back of the boat. Anyway, I assume we were usually going by 8 am - school usually only took a couple hours, depending mostly, really, on how focused I/we were that day. Also, I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that whenever Mom mentions Commercial, it’s basically just the largest nearby supermarket, of which there usually was only one to chose from.

February 22, Thursday

It wasn’t easy, but Samie and I did school – after a couple of days off, it’s always hard to get into the swing of it – not to mention that being in a marina there’s always something else to do.
John raised all the sails and sprayed ‘em down. Then he waxed one side of the boat and started the fueling process.
I printed out my story to mail off to family and friends, but I’m gonna have to forget about sending pictures that go with it because it would cost too much for all the copies. Oh well.
I took Samie and Jelly up to the pool.
Princess Erika came in today.

February 23, Friday

John waxed the other side of the boat  and finished fueling. We did a shop and took it easy. Oh – during school, Samie asked, “Dad can I borrow the dinghy after school?”
Just like teenagers asking for the car! We cracked up – we’ve been there.

*I loved getting to go putz around in the dink and wander as far as Mom and Dad would let me as I got older. Usually rowing (I still LOVE to row, it always feels amazing and I love seeing how fast I can go) but eventually tooling around with the Mariner, our bigger dinghy motor. I love the feeling of gliding over the water at any speed. 🥰

February 24, Saturday

John took off the starboard forward stanchion to have it welded – but it’s too far gone and couldn’t be fixed, oh well.
I took Samie to the pool.

February 25, Sunday

John cleaned the water maker and changed the filters, then he took Samie to the water park – I think all the other “kid boats” went too. I stayed here and visited with Janice for a couple hours.
We watched the local artists on the plaza work their magic with spray paint. It’s just so fascinating how they make the pictures with newspaper by rubbing it over the wet paint.
I also filmed a guy making blown glass for Daddy – so fascinating!

*I wonder if Mom was playing a little catch-up in the journal here, because the date on the glass-blowing video is the 26th! It’s a wonder, truly, that she kept up as well as she did, making the time nearly every single day for seven seasons on the Wandrin’ Star!

February 26, Monday

Janice and I took a bus downtown and walked around, checking out the shops for a couple hours. I’m really gonna miss her when they leave for Hawaii and then back to the States.
John washed the cushion covers.
Ourselves, Renegade, Nanamuck, and True Blue all went to the Marriot Hotel where they have a “60’s Club” old-timey bar and dance floor with oldies tunes. The kids danced around and played air hockey. Then we went with Arne, Janice and their crew member, Frank, to Captain Morgan’s for dinner. Tonight, Janice gave me a silver and turquoise butterfly bracelet.
Goon called to say hi.

*We danced our little hearts out to The Twist and other great oldies! It was a great night out. Also, a photo of the Princess Erika clan.

February 27, Tuesday

Janice came over for a while this morning. John checked out - $153.02 for a week in Marina Vallarta. We left the marina at about 12:30 pm, with light winds which increased and increased until they were blowing 20-25 knots out of the west at 40-45° off our nose. The usual March afternoon winds in Bandaras Bay. We were anchored by 2:45 pm.
Angela – Hal, Angie, Megan and Little Hal came over for dinner.
As much as I love Marina Vallarta, it sure feels good to be on anchor again.

February 28, Wednesday

Megan came over with her schoolwork and Samie did her work, then we all went into Cruise Quarters – the girls swam for a while, but it’s so cold. Angela left to take their boat in to be hauled out.
We talked to Steve on the radio. Called Chelle, they still don’t know when they are coming out.
Samie talked to Rane, they haven’t gotten Samie’s missing Christmas present back and she hadn’t insured it.

*How cute, I don’t remember anyone ever coming over with their schoolwork! Megan and I were both pretty good at working together and focusing when we wanted to, though, so I think this makes sense.

February 29, Thursday

Oh man – we – yes I mean we because I forgot – are learning division already. I have a feeling I’m gonna be lost in math by the time Samie’s in 5th grade at the rate we’re going now.
Danielle called – she said Jason F. starts physical therapy this week. He will learn to sit up in a wheel chair. She said he seems to be doing ok, he knows the doctors think he will never walk again and of course he says he will. Maybe with lots of positive thinking, time and therapy, he will!
Danielle is gonna check on flights and costs to Mazatlan.
Spent the afternoon at Cruise Quarters.

March ‘96

*Additional notes may appear in italics after my mom’s initial journal entries.
A ladybug means you should check the comments at the bottom of the page to see what Mom has chimed in on after reading these!

March 1, Friday

Well the Bandaras Bay winds sure blew today, it was toot’en up to 25 knots with whitecaps roll’en in and tossing the dink about, tied next to the boat.
Nanamuk came in to La Cruz from Marina Vallarta this afternoon. It never calmed down until around 5 pm. We went into Cruise Quarters for a “rib fix”, they have the best ribs I’ve ever eaten! After dinner, Rosa and Nancy brought me an ice cream cake – chocolate. I broke down and had a very small slice, it’s been about 5 years since I’ve had any chocolate and it sure was good.
While we were gone, the phone had rang 3 times.

*I’m nearly certain the reason Mom hadn’t had chocolate in so long was because it gave her migraines. 🐞

March 2nd, Saturday

Happy 41st to me!

This morning on the “Weather or Not” net, we found 3 other cruisers birthday’s are today also – Sally on Louana, Joe on Sea Hope and someone else we didn’t know.
John had bought me a dress in Zihuatanejo that I really like and Samie made me a sailboat and poster.
I declared today a “holiday” – no school! We took a taxi into the marina and visited with Renegade (Janice made me a special card), had lunch at Angela’s restaurant and came on back to the boat.
We had 10 phone calls while we were out. Why does it always ring when we’re gone? We hung around for a couple of hours waiting for them to call back – but no, they wait ‘till we leave again!
The crew of Nanamuk had us over and cooked spaghetti for my birthday dinner, it was wonderful and they gave us the tape they have been filming of our boat. It’s a great tape and maybe we can get some more on it if we don’t get separated for too long. We are filming one of them, also. It looked like we may be splitting up for good – they need to move on up to the Sea of Cortez faster than we were planning, but after talking to Goon tonight (who called to say Happy B-day) the girls may not be flying into Mazatlan after all. She said flights are $300 U.S. that week, probably because it’s spring break and they know people will pay it. So hopefully we won’t have to part company so soon.
It's going to be sad and lonely when so many of the boats we have been with for 2 seasons now start leaving for different places now. We had made some very special friendships here in the Mexican waters, some we may never see again.
Ok, I also got a book from Mom called The Christmas Box. Inside she had attached color photo-copies of pictures of us kids when we were all little. One is of me (4 years), Angie (3 years) and Sandie (6 months), all dressed in sailor dress. Jo at 17 months and Andy at 2 years.

*Janice has always made the sweetest and most creative cards for holidays and birthdays. She attaches a beautiful photo on the front and frames it with decorative puff paint and glitter. I always enjoyed seeing her creations being revealed from inside their envelopes, filled with small confetti and lots of love.
I went back and added the videos Nanamuk took of us to January and February, so be sure to go back for those if you were already caught up to this point. I also went one step further and combined our two videos of the trip to Buffadero Bluff when we caught and released a sailfish (Jan 22nd) - you can find that one here.
I also have to poke a little fun here - occasionally when in the States, I’d hear about some “HUGE” fish a friend caught and have to stifle a chuckle at their 6” lake fish catch, after seeing my parents tackle monsters like these a few times over!

March 3, Sunday

After school and before the wind came up, the kids all went for a swim between the boats. There’s a new boat here, Lasqueti, they have two families on board – 4 adults and 7 kids. They have kayaks and Samie and Jelly had their first try at kayaking; they did great at staying up right, but didn’t make much forward progress. They also had a try at roller skating on shore. So today was a day for new adventures.
Later, Rob and Grace came over for awhile to say goodbye, at least for now. They are leaving for Mazatlan in the morning.
Goon called sad ‘cuz she won’t be able to fly out. Ok, Mom and Daddy called this morning – they got the story I wrote, Imagine, and they really enjoyed it. I heard a couple of whales breathing and “singing” here in the anchorage tonight.

*Lots of video was taken on this day! Mom was adding to our own tape as well as the one we were making for Nanamuk. It’s so crazy to think of how much more time and effort it took to share your experiences with others back then - before digital media, social platforms and easy access to the internet.
About the boat, Lasqueti - I don’t think we ever saw them again beyond this anchorage, but I wonder how long they’d been cruising with two families; what an interesting challenge that must have been in such a small space.

March 4, Monday

We took Jelly’s birthday gifts over to her this morning before they left. Her B-day isn’t until the 31st, but we may not be together then.
John dove on the boat this morning.
John went ashore and picked up Rosa and Jena from Cruise Quarters so they could come out and see the boat.
Tonight, as the sun set and colored the western sky in shades of warm pinks, the moon was also rising to the east. As its fullness rose and was partly hidden behind clouds, casting a brilliant spotlight down upon the water.
La Cruz has always been one of the prettiest places for the spectacular shows of so many different beauties that nature has to offer.

March 5, Tuesday

We headed into P.V. Marina via bus this morning to check the mail, we still have 2 letters coming, but no luck.
Renegade was all but ready to cast off their dock lines to begin their trip to La Cruz and on to Hawaii. By the time we picked up some meat for the freezer and waited the half hour or more for the bus – they arrived in La Cruz just 15 minutes after we did.
After Happy Hour on Renegade, we all went into Cruise Quarters for a farewell dinner of ribs. Once our bellies were stuffed, we walked to the far end of town to listen to some of the local cruisers play music at a club called “Club Rocks”. A really neat rock building built up on a ledge, the dining area has rock seats with cushions, and a wall-fall (not working). Anyway, it was cool! From the balcony, you overlooked the anchorage, and tonight the full moon reflected down on the silky ocean.
It was a great time, but still a little sadness was felt all around at this, our last night together for who knows how long.
Oh, while I was writing to Shine and Samie was painting him a picture – he called! He says he’s doing ok and he sounded good, glad to be off the mountain.

*Our friends Sue and Pepe were two of the cruisers we went to hear sing - it was always a pleasure listening to them play in different ports at local bars/restaurants.

March 6, Wednesday

Happy Birthday Cardon, #1

John dove on the boat to finish the bottom, Samie swam over to Renegade, then John and I dinghied over to say goodbye and wish them well. Samie and I did our best to get them to change their minds  and stay in Mexico – no luck!
So, at noon, as the winds picked up, Arne, Janice and their crew member, Frank, brought in the anchor for the last time for the next 25 to 30 days. Smiling through the tears threatening to fall, we wave farewell to our friends, since July ’94 in Marina Cortez, San Diego. As they motor by on our port side, we can hear the music of bagpipes floating our way as they float away.
We went into Cruise Quarters to try and cheer ourselves up, but as the day wore on and night fell, we were all depressed, I guess the loneliness had set in and Samie and I had a good cry.
It was a sad day in paradise.

*The hardest part of cruising is saying goodbye to the people you’ve grown so close to. You’re hardly ever “stuck” with anyone while cruising and you don’t often suffer your neighbors so much as you choose them. They become the family you choose and cruise with, sharing adventures and exploring together. But eventually, we all have our own separate trails to blaze and dreams to follow beyond the horizon line. We kept in touch with Arne and Janice and are still in touch via social media. ❤ We did visit them seven years later in San Francisco back in 2003 while we were on a long road trip in my parent’s R.V. to the PNW and back down the coastline. We also saw Nanamuk on that trip - it was such a great time!

March 7, Thursday

We left La Cruz at 7 am and headed for Chacala. Just after rounding Punta de Mita, we made contact with Arne on SSB at 9:30 on 8.104 – they were at 20-14N/107 -34W, had 10-15 knots NW and 4-6 foot seas out of the NW. They estimate that at noon today they will have made 150 miles.
Our sail today was full of adventure. To begin with, once we rounded Punta de Mita, we had 8 to 12 knots all day at a pleasant 30-40° off our port, which made for a nice 6 knot speed as we motor-sailed along. John brought in a 25 or 30 lb carvel jack that fought like crazy. We let him go, as they are red meat and not very tasty.
Just off of Jaltemba, 2 jet skis came along side of us – a mile off shore – to say hi and give us a “thumbs up”. Of all things – I’ve never seen jet skiers so far off shore!
We saw a few whales in the distance. A sailfish was jumping to the side of us and John took the boat towards him, hoping to hook him on the lines. As we were looking behind to see if he took the lure, a HUGE manta ray flew maybe 20 feet from the water just a hundred feet behind us. He was at least as wide as our boat, which is 13’2”. Oh, he was so beautiful and graceful flying up and forward, his black back, and white belly caught for a few seconds in the reflection of the bright sun. On his 3rd and final jump, he was close enough that it seemed he was smiling. Once he disappeared, I think he was swimming under for 5 minutes or so, because our depth went down to 20 feet. I wish at times like that we had a glass-bottom boat.
We were anchored in Chacala at 3:15 pm. Samie went for a row in the dink around the boat, I soon joined her. We had drinks on Palio, who is anchored bow and stern behind us. We have heard Roxanne on the ham (XCA), but never met her and her hubby, Don before. As the night set in, we rolled in the swell and wished we had a stern anchor.
Rob and Grace are in Mazatlan at least until Monday.

Sunset in Chacala

March 8, Friday

The morning was cool, but the day warmed up nicely. John polished the brass dodger window push-out arms – whatever they’re called. He got all the green salt tarnish off – they shine beautifully now. Rob would just shake his head!
John and Samie went to the beach – I took a nap! Haven’t talked to Steve for a while.

March 9, Saturday

Happy B-day Vickie

We left Chacala this morning at 7 am, headed for San Blas; Palio is also traveling with us. We saw a  mother and baby humpback playing in between our boats. Other than that, it was just a nice motor, there was about 5-10 knots, but on our nose. We didn’t go into the estuary, but anchored out in Matanchen Bay at 11:15 am.
The rest of the day was a lazy one, although John did dive down and clean the propeller while Samie swam alongside. Talked to Steve on the ham, he has been sick with brochitis, which Brenda had a couple weeks ago.
We have up all our “San Blas netting”, but the little buggers are still sneaking in!

March 10, Sunday

George Burns died.

Ourselves and Palio took the bus into San Blas, visited with Norm and Jan, ate at McDonald’s and looked around the square before taking a taxi back to the beach.
We did talk to Steve tonight.

I always loved this view looking out from Matanchen Bay. The sun would set behind this and always made for picturesque evenings.

Orca, Norm and Jan's Macaw parrot.

March 11, Monday

Happy B-day Cammie

We left Matanchen Bay, San Blas at 8:30 am for Mazatlan. The day began with light winds on our nose which built to 10-18 knots, laying down to 5 knots around 10 pm. The seas had been lumpy and we were taking some spray, but nothing bad.  John brought in two 30lb caravelle jacks, but released them, actually, one got wrapped on the wind vane and broke the line.
Out here in the “triangle” we could hear boats in P.V., Mazatlan, Cabo and halfway between Mazatlan and La Paz all on the VHF.
The night was smooth and peaceful, no shrimp boats to dodge.

March 12, Tuesday

At around 8:30 am, 6 miles out of Mazatlan, the fog started to settle in all around us until we were socked in! Palio made it in the anchorage, unfortunately we weren’t fast enough. Just as a break came and we thought we’d make a dash, we could hear a fog horn, somewhere out there the ferry boat was headed in.
Memories of San Diego 4 years ago, when we nearly got ran down in a similar fog came flooding back – at least we have radar this time!! But even so, it’s a pretty eerie feeling. So, for the next 2.5 hours, we were spinning circles a quarter mile from the point and half a mile from the rock, between which we must pass to the entrance.
I got good video if the lighthouse peaking through on top of the fog before it would disappear again.
Out of the dog, not 20 feet beside us was a panga, sitting, waiting also – so we made circles around the 3 young Mexicans who would keep pointing to the entrance and we kept circling, waiting until we could see!
Finally, at 11:30 am, it cleared off completely and we headed in. The “3 amigos” in the panga were pointing, we were headed that direction (already knowing the way), so I wave for them to come too, I thought they were also waiting for the fog to lift. They got as far as the entrance in the breakwater and turned to go back out. They thought we needed help getting in! It was so funny, they were so nice and cute while they danced in the panga, waiting.
Nanamuk is still here and we anchored next to the. Samie played over there while John and I took a nap.
Palio, Don and Roxanne came over for Happy Hour – Rob, Grace and kids came over for dinner.
Nanamuk’s plans are to stay here and haul out on the 25th.

Fog outside of Mazatlan! It was terrifying to hear fog horns nearby and not see anything!

March 13, Wednesday

Well Arne and Janice have been underway to Hawaii for one week now. We talked to them this morning on the SSB 8.104 just like they were next door. They were at 20° -07 N / 112° - 56 W and had 15-18 knots NNE, 4-6 foot seas, 68°, all wearing jackets, 75% cloud cover. They are making about 150 miles + per day and are about 900 miles offshore.
Nanamuk found out they may have to wait longer than they want to be able to haul out here in Mazatlan – so we had another farewell happy hour tonight.
We called Chelle, she just had a tooth pulled, but otherwise all is well with them. Schyler is walking some now. They won’t be able to fly out and Danielle still doesn’t know.

March 14, Thursday

Nanamuk pulled anchor and left this morning at 6:30.
Arne could not hear us this a.m. on SSB, but we got their lat and long, all is well out in the Pacific.
Danielle called, she won’t know until Friday the 21st if she’ll have enough money to come or not – so we’ll just wait here. Goon called, it was snowing at 8:00 this a.m.
Samie did lesson 100 and passed! We only have 60 more lessons to go!
A boat called Hot Toddy came in today, they have a 12-year-old girl, Sonya and she came over for the afternoon. The girls hit it off wonderfully, even with the age difference.
We have been listening to the wind howl outside, it’s getting up to 18 knots here in the anchorage and we are behind a small mountain. I hope Nanamuk and Nipinka are not getting much more than that and that the seas don’t build too much. I remember last year and it scares me.

March 15, Friday

Nanamuk only had 10 knots all  night, but the swell and wind chop were making it rough. Tonight, on happy hour, they were 55 miles SE of Muertos with 12-15 k NW, hoping they could make forward progress. We had 10 k NW all day and now at 9:00 pm it’s been blowing 20 knots for an hour or more. And it’s cold, we all have sweat pants on!
Arne and Janice are almost half way to Hawaii.
This afternoon John, Samie and I boarded the Captain’s shore boat and went out to the USS Fletcher 992, which is anchored a mile or so outside the breakwater. John had asked permission a couple days ago and we were invited on. Once boarding this monster of a ship, we were shown all the outside decks, the galley, mess hall, and various different areas. As we walked past the doctor’s, barber shop, post office, ugly tellers and candy machines, Samie said “This is just like a little city!!” The sailor showing us around was Brian S. of Pennsylvania and has been on the USS Fletcher for 4 years. He was a “radar man”, so we got to see the radar room. Lots of different radar on this ship. We also went in the control room where she is driven from.
Slightly bigger and more to it than our cockpit! We got to see the course they had plotted when they came in to anchor. They are based in Hawaii – it took them 5 days to get here and will go on up to San Diego.
They carry 350-some crew and 20 officers on board.
Our tour lasted about 45 minutes, I guess. It was really interesting!! The Fletcher is a Destroyer.

Brian, myself, and other crew aboard the USS Fletcher

*When the USS Fletcher was built in 1980, it was the 30th Spruance class destroyer built. It was the 15th destroyer to join the Pacific Fleet. It had been all over the world in its 16 years up to that point, spending as many as 101 days at sea. After their departure from Mazatlan on the 17th, the crew actually rescued an injured crew member aboard a vessel in distress! As quoted in this article about the ship’s history:
“While en route from Mazatlán, Mexico, to San Diego, Fletcher received message traffic on a bridge-to-bridge radio from the fishing vessel JoAnn. Reporting a casualty to her main engine, JoAnn also claimed to have been adrift for ten days, low on food, water, and fuel. In addition, she had an injured crewmember on board needing emergency evacuation and medical attention. After a brief search, Fletcher located and closed the stricken vessel, transferring a team via motor whaleboat to assess the engineering casualty and to render first aid. The injured crewmember, suffering from cellulitis and in the first stages of gangrene, was in danger of losing both feet through amputation if he did not receive medical attention in 3–5 days. The destroyer transported the injured crewmember back to San Diego, after providing JoAnn food, water, and an emergency pump. Fletcher later received the Humanitarian Service Medal for the rescue.”
How wild is that?! I wonder whatever happened to the crewmembers and the boat. I hope everyone was ok, considering.

March 16, Saturday

John fueled up yesterday and did this and that today. The fuel pump was leaking, so he changed the ring.
Renegade is almost half way to Hawaii, they should pass the halfway point today.
Samie called to tell Sam about the Navy ship – he wasn’t home, but called back.
There was a Mexican wedding over on shore that played music – loud music – from noon or so until 8 pm. Even played a few American oldies – “1 o’clock, 2 o’clock, 3 o’clock rock!” – Wake Up Little Suzie and Jail House Rock!!
It has been so cold here, that the hatches remain closed most all day and the nights and mornings call for sweats. Some mornings are 60°- 62° and days only 75° - winter – let’s go south!

 *My dad, Sam, was in the Navy when he was younger, so I was excited to share my experience with him!

March 17, Sunday

St. Patty’s Day!

Mike from Irish Mist came over and adjusted the valves on the main engine and gen set. ($30)
John bought lobster from one of the fishing boats.
We went into town, Samie bought some little Barbie hats, flowers and lace and a meter of fabric so she can be creative. Once we were through with that, the main market was shut down. So we headed home.
Talked to Renegade, they did cross the halfway point yesterday. Last night they had 25 – 45 knots of wind, and thus, not a pleasant ride. Today it was still blowing 25, but had smoothed out some. Also, Ken from True Blue came up on frequency, he is on the merchant ship Matzoania, which was just pulling in to L.A. for the next 3 days. He still has 3 more trips to Hawaii and back before he can return to Cheryl and the kids in P.V.

*I am not 100% sure, but I think I found the ship Ken was on. I wasn’t able to find anything under Matzoania, the closest I found was for the Mastonia, which was taken out of service in 2022, 49 years after being built in 1973. Looks like she outlasted all her sister-ships, according to this article from 2019.

March 18, Monday

Not a lot of action today, after school, Samie went over to Hot Toddy – it’s Sonya’s 13th b-day. We all went out for pizza and back to their boat with Sonya, Sue and Dan for cake. She is English, from England and I love listening to the English words and accent.

*Sonya and I hit it off right away. Dad and Tod had met, and, as cruisers do upon finding other kid boats, they threw us together to see how it went - I think it took us all of two minutes to know we were friends. She introduced me to Selena and No Doubt and now Bidi Bidi Bom Bom and Don’t Speak will always remind me of her. She LOVED the movie Beaches and we watched it a couple times while we were together. We swore to be friends forever and always and promised each other that one day we would be roommates. We have kept all those promises! We kept in touch via letters for years, then switched to good ‘ole MySpace. I flew to Georgia and drove across the country with her to Arizona where we gathered my things and drove separately out to Ventura. We lived here for a couple months with her mom, Sue - bless that woman for putting up with us two young 20-somethings sleeping on her couch for about three months! Ultimately, the move ended up being right at the time of the economic crash and a lot of what I’d had in mind for college and housing wasn’t working out and I decided to move back home where I had more security and familial support. But I’ll never forget the feeling we had of keeping that childhood promise to each other, the celebration and excitement of reuniting after 12 years and still loving each other to pieces and getting along just fine. Connection has been harder since - life gets busy and passes by - but we are still linked on social media. Seems like now would be an appropriate time to reach out and check in! If you see this: I love you, Sonya! Forever and Always! ❤

March 19, Tuesday

We weighed a muddy anchor today and headed around and up the coast to Marina Mazatlan along with Oceania, and West Wind. We made the trip in 1.5 hours. I think about 8 other boats came in, also.
The radio reception wasn’t great and I missed Renegade’s position and weather – poop!
John sprayed down the top-sides, Samie sprayed down the contents of the “garage”, and I cleaned the head, vacuumed and went through the canned goods storage. A couple cans had rusted through and left a big mess. There are still several cans from San Diego – 1994.
We made a trip to Gigantes by bus. This end of Mazatlan is a big tourist city; Samie said it’s not like Mexico – but the States. Danielle and Peg both called. Samie had a “tea party” with Roxanne – dolls included. She said it was lots of fun!

March 20, Wednesday

Renegade has been gone two weeks today. I talked to Arne for just a bit, they have about 900 miles left to go. The winds have not been too great the last couple of days and they are just barely making 100 miles per day now. Not like the 150 they were making at first.
John waxed the outside of the boat and I lemon-oiled the inside. It warmed up to 82° today, but the nights still cool down to a chilly 62°.
Danielle called, she’s gonna fly into La Paz on the 27th – Chelle might fly out, too. So if the weather holds, we’ll leave here on Friday to cross over to the Baja.

March 21, Thursday

The day was spent getting ready to cross from here to La Paz. My nerves are on edge and my muscles tight – not looking forward to it, even though the weather looks good.
We went into town for an ice cream and small shop. Samie and I took a dinghy ride with Susan from Oceana to explore all of the channels that are part of this marina in the building. There are some really beautiful homes on up farther, a lot of big $.
At 5:30, we left the slip and tied up to one of the end docks so we can scoot on out early in the morning.
The sunset tonight was one of those that just kept getting better and better. It was worth 3 '“Kodak Moments” and a video.
Tonight in the eastern sky, I saw a new comet – don’t know the name, but it’s the brightest one since Halley’s Comet. Pretty cool, it looked like a bright star or partial moon behind a cloud.
Comet name: Hyakutake.

*Hyakutake was actually discovered a mere 51 days before by Hyakutake Yuji. It was noted as one of the brightest comets of the 20th century. I found this interesting video about how astrophotographer Peter Ceravolo captured 900+ detailed photos of the comet and strung them together in order to create a “video” of the comet as it traveled across the sky each night.
With this comet and Hale-Bopp the year after, it seems we were in the perfect place for such rare and incredible sightings!

Sunrise in Marina Mazatlan

March 22, Friday

Happy B-day Delores

We left Marina Mazatlan at 6:00 with first light. Just outside the entrance a couple miles, we had the big dolphins swim under the bow for a while – good luck.
I called Delores to wish her a Happy B-day, she wasn’t there, so I left a message on the machine.
The weather looks good, almost no wind so far and should stay light and variable.
Somewhere around noon, I was able to capture on film several bat rays jumping, flipping and flying beside us in the peaceful ocean.
When we were 25 miles out, 5 hours, a panga came speeding towards us from the Baja side – 2 fisherman asking where the beach was. It would be freaky way out there, no land in sight and no instruments for direction.
We had a small sail hooked up, but broke free.
Talked to Steve P. on the ham. Turned the gen-set on, but after 5 minutes, it quit – it was overheating and shut down. Tried to run the back-up gas generator, but it wouldn’t run either. Then, just before sundown, we always turn off the engine and check the oil – tonight it was a gray color – not good  - and was up on the level. John thought we had water in the oil – BIG PROBLEM – but he decided if so, it’s minor so far and could be ‘cause he put in a different kind this time. So, we started her up again and checked the dip stick every 20 minutes for the remainder of the night and all is well. Lucked out on that one, but it made for a nerve-wracking night.
The winds were peaceful all night, a slight breeze keeping the sails full from the south.
Samie kept me company on watch tonight, we had a nice “girl talk” about my first kiss – long ago – my best friend when I was 9, and such as that. It was a nice evening. Earlier we had all gazed at the comet up near the Big Dipper. Tonight, it even had a visible tail following behind. At 41, I’ve bever seen a comet before, but at 9, Samie has! In the States, with all the city lights it’s probably not too visible.
The clear, brilliant nighttime skies out here are beautiful!
Samie and I both looked to the moon and said Hi to Janice, knowing she also can see the same moon.

*I remember this being a thing we’d say and do, maybe it was popular in the 90s, to look at the moon when you were missing the other person. It was always comforting across long distances with friends, to think they were doing the same while thinking of you, too.

March 23, Saturday

Around 5 am, the winds picked up out of the south and were blowing 15-20 knots with gusts to 25 right off our port beam. Not too bad, though the swell and chop made for a rolly ride and left the top-sides coated in salt. This lasted till 12:30 pm or so and then died down to nearly nothing.
We hooked a dorado and John let me pull him in – 48 inches of blue, green and yellow iridescent colors. We got 4 long strips of meat – 2 we gave to Hot Toddy later. We anchored in Los Muertos at 4 pm – a 34-hour trip total, and so much better than last year’s!!
John got the gen-set running by replacing “something so that the water would run in through the heat exchanger.”
After a quick inside clean up and showers, Hot Toddy had anchored, so we all headed to shore for pizza at Sourdough’s, and what a treat after a long passage.
Samie couldn’t sleep tonight and woke me up about 4 times, once the wind was blowing 20 knots, but I knew we were hooked good and I was fast asleep in 2 minutes.
Oh – around 9:30 the s/v Victoria hailed us on 16 and said they had picked up 3 fisherman 55 miles out in a panga that was just about ready to sink. They had run out of gas and had been out there for 2 days waiting for a boat to pass by. Anyway, they weren’t anchoring and wanted someone to pick the fisherman up in a dink and take them to shore – so John did. Those were very lucky guys to be alive.

*I don’t really have any recollection of the 3 fisherman - what a scary situation to be in! I wonder how they ended up so far out there. They really were incredibly lucky someone came across their path when they did! 😯

* Whooo! I can feel the movement of the boat in the beginning of that video!! I can guarantee Mom had herself braced and propped, filming there from the upside of the boat like that. Kudos for Mom’s 4-foot Dorado catch! I’m having a realization at this moment that the fish would have been nearly as big as myself at the time! There was another year when Mom did bring in a Dorado which was actually bigger than her. We let that one go, though - too much fish and we were still in the middle of filleting another! ‘Ole Captain Norm said it would have been a record for that year! Finally, I feel like I remember this specific trip in to Muertos - it seemed to drag on for the entire day! When you spot land after being far out at sea, it’s exciting and all, but then you still have hours upon hours of travel time while putzing along at 4 or 5 knots - a little faster than 4-5 miles per hour. It’s a good practice in patience.

March 24, Sunday

We left Los Muertos at 7:15 this morning. Getting the anchor up was a trick, it was wrapped around 2 rocks – lucky the water is so clear that John could see down and tell me which way to steer to unwrap it. The wind and weather was a strange one! It began very cloudy and dark, a cool 80° once at the entrance of the channel between the Baja and Ceravo Island the wind was light and southerly, at the north end it shifted to the north and the temp dropped to 70° and so the rest of the day went, one minute I was in a sweat shirt and the next, pulling it off – hot and cold.
Talked to Grace Nanamuk on VHF, they are in Marina Palmira and haul out tomorrow and fly from Cabo to Canada on Thursday.
I haven’t been able to get Renegade’s position for the last 3 days while we were underway, so I talked to Karen on Dessert First and got the position and weather. They have had light wind days lately, but are getting close. 19° -32 N and 146° - 54 W with 74°.
We went into The Dock for dinner tonight.
Right now it’s nearly 10 pm and the wind has been blowing for the last our at 10-15 out of SSE - 66° and cold!

The morning sun leaving Los Muertos.

March 25, Monday

John did the check-in routine while Sam and I did school. After the last 3 days of “vacation” it’s always a chore to get at it again.
In working on the gen set, John found the real problem – a completely plugged-up heat exchanger full of corrosion, so now it’s cleaned and it runs much cooler.
Nanamuk came over to a dorado dinner tonight. They had the boat hauled out today.
The ”La Paz Waltz” was really scoot’en all the boats around tonight – everyone was sail’en around on anchors in all different directions.

*The timing with which I keep picking back up with these journal postings cracks me up! I am regularly syncing up with whatever I’m typing or editing. Like the day I was editing the entry of my great grandfather’s death randomly being exactly the same day 28 years later, or when I was transcribing what my mom wrote about the double blue moon back in 1999 - while in the midst of the third blue moon to even happen since then… Or now, I’m finally getting to the spring of ‘96, which happens to be a sweet pocket of time when I was listening to Jimmy Buffett with fervency - like there was no other music to be heard - enough so that Mom called me Buffett for months to come. Please note his appropriately timed entry into our video soundtrack here with “Fins” playing in the background, from our “Songs You Know By Heart” album. He also was in the background of our Chacala sunset video. As I’m typing this, Jimmy Buffett passed away 11 days ago - just in time for the Labor Day Weekend show - iykyk. 💔 I have been more affected by his passing than I would have imagined - he really held a spot in my heart - through his music he understands in a way not many people do. He and the Coral Reefers take me right back to these most beautiful, warm, sparkling days of my youth every time I tune in. I can’t believe he’s gone, but I’m so grateful he was here. Sail on, Captain. ❤

March 26, Tuesday

John spent the morning getting the cell phone working. It had been turned off by mistake – it worked, then it didn’t work – another phone call from shore and again ok – let’s hope it stays that way.
Danielle will be in tomorrow.
It took 60 gallons of fuel to fill the tanks.
Samie and Sonya (Hot Toddy) got together today.

March 26, Wednesday

John changed some of the hoses on the main engine today. We borrowed Dan and Sue’s little Toyota truck (just like our old one) to go pick Danielle up at the airport. She arrived at 4::30 pm, hit CCC on the way home. She brought Samie a dozen or so Orca things for Christmas and her birthday and a huge easter basket. She brought the movie Babe, about a pig, we watched it, cute.

March 28, Thursday

Arne and Janice Renegade checked in just before the 8.104 West Bound net at 9:00 am to say they were approaching Hilo, Hawaii!! 22 days after leaving La Cruz, Mexico, they made good time in their sail to Hilo. It was so exciting for us – I can only imagine how it felt for them!
We also talked to Ken (True Blue) out on the Matsonia between Hawaii and L.A. California for a bit today.
We all went into town today to show Danielle around and she bought some t-shirts and other goodies. We ate out for lunch.
Hot Toddy came over for a couple hours tonight. I love to listen to Sue with her English accent and expressions.

*Ah-ha, I was right, the name is Matsonia!

The Kiosco de Malecón

Coming home to the Star ❤

Shenanigans!

I was probably more than a foot out of reach, so Danielle put me on her shoulders, lol! But now I see that chair in the background and wonder if that would have been so much easier?! 😂

Sunset in La Paz

March 29, Friday

We left La Paz at 9:30 am, headed for Ensenada Grande, 0 wind to light – no sea life to watch. Made it in to the beautiful anchorage at 2:30 pm. I stayed aboard while John, Sam and Danielle went to check out the beach.

La Paz Bay, 3.29.96

March 30, Saturday

Samie and I managed a day of school, then we all went to the beach. John took some under water pictures with the camera Danielle bought. I snorkled for awhile, Samie had a go at kayaking in a one-person kayak that someone else had on the beach – she did great at scooting it right along. Danielle proceeded to get her normal sunburn on the first day.

March 31, Sunday

Happy B-Day Jelly

We weighed anchor around 9:30 and headed out to “Seal Rock”, i.e. Los Islotes where we anchored for about 3 hours. We loaded in the dink and went up close in and around the seals. They are calving this time of year, there was every size from babies to HUGE grand-daddies. John swam with them and got some underwater photos. I swore there was no way I was getting in with ‘em, but my curiosity got the better of me, so once we went back to the boat and got my wet suit – I was in. Wow, totally amazing to be swimming with seals. They came right up to us with their huge eyes and long whiskers. One or two of them around was fine, but once the bigger mommas came in, I was out. Samie gave it a try but only lasted a few minutes. Danielle even went in for 30 minutes or so. There were millions of other beautiful fish swarming about, too. Spectacular day!
Once we left, we headed to Partida to anchor, but a NE wind was toot’en in, so we went to El Cardonel, but the anchor would not set, so it was back to Ensenada Grande.
What a day to remember.

*I remember this day, for sure, but I don’t remember getting in to swim! It’s not surprising that I didn’t last long - I was easily overwhelmed by so many things in the water - especially when the sea life was equally curious and would come right up to you! I was always nervous about something swimming up behind me. Being underwater reminds me of being in a fog - you can only see so far away, and then who knows what’s beyond that ocean haze! My imagination always got the best of me! I’m glad Mom got in the water - like she said, we didn’t expect that from her! You can see her with Dad in the 4th, 5th and 6th snorkeling photos, then the last three are of Danielle in the water with Dad. I’m glad Danielle had bought the waterproof disposables for this trip and were able to get these cool shots!

April ‘96

*Additional notes may appear in italics after my mom’s initial journal entries.
A ladybug means you should check the comments at the bottom of the page to see what Mom has chimed in on after reading these!

April 1, Monday

We brought up the anchor again this morning and went around the corner to Partida, found a sandy spot and set her down. The early afternoon was spent snorkeling, Danielle wanted to go so I stayed in the dink. It’s cold water and only one wet suit and I can go anytime. John brought up 3 star fish and set them on the dink, after 5 minutes they had crept their way over the side and back into the water. Even in the dink I could see down into the crystal-clear water and all the pretty fish swimming within. John brought up a puffer-box fish. They are kinda rectangular, box looking until they are in danger, then they puff up into a big round black ball with white spots. His little fins were flapp’en and his white powerful jaw was ready to bite. Really something to see.
Later we took the dink across the north beach, the tide was out and the shoreline was covered with little pincher crabs – thousands of the critters. Danielle was barefooted and it was quite a sight, her running and jumping through them!
John got 6 small scallops along the shoreline, wrapped [them with] bacon and on the grill with the chicken and potatoes – yum!
The wind kicked up at 9:00 pm tonight and howled out of the south at 18 to 20 knots till about 3 am. I took the anchor watch until 12:30 am and John till  3 am – this anchorage is rocky and only partly sandy, so ya never know if you’ll end up dragging. Better safe than asleep and sorry. Thankfully all was well.

*I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it yet, but to this day, Mom and I will comment on windy days/nights that we are sure glad we’re not at anchor!
Thanks to photos, I remember this day well! I remember what a kick we got out of the puffer fish having two quite human-looking front teeth.

April 2, Tuesday

The wind started up again around 8:30 am – so we decded to head on in to La Paz. We were towing the dink and raised the sail. As soon as we poked our nose around the corner, we reefed the main – 10 more minutes out and we turned back to drop the main and bring the dink and motor aboard – no reason to take the chance on losing them. It is our car after all!After a couple hours it went from 20 to 10 knots and was a pleasant day. We were anchored by 2:30 pm – just in time for the La Paz Boogie!
We went into the Dock for dinner and then to Black Beard’s to listen to the jam session. Gail, who lives here, sings beautifully, she reminds us a lot of Lorrie Morgan. Sue and Peppy (Melissa), among others, sang. Great time! Samie was sitting on the windowsill with Don, (Palio), Roxanne at the table – all just “getting down!”

April 3, Wednesday

Skipped school again – shame on us! We all traipsed off into town to get the film developed. The underwater photos came out great. Had lunch and came back home. John bought a new battery for the gen-set – started it up fine, but went to run the water maker and the motor on it is gone. So now we’ve got to have that fixed.
Dan, Sue and Sonya from Hot Toddy came over for pork chops – very nice evening.
John called NEC and talked to Tim, Kent had surgery yesterday to remove part of his large intestine. But it looks promising for work this summer.
There was a full lunar eclipse of the moon, although when it came up from behind the mountain it was, for the most part, already gone, only the tip was still in the shadow.
Too bad we weren’t crossing where we could have seen it all.

April 4, Thursday

John took the water maker motor in, it looks like the bearings need replaced.
It was more or less a lazy day, Danielle laid in the sun one more time.
Tonight, we went in with the Hot Toddy crew to Black Beard’s to listen to music.

April 5, Friday

Danielle, Samie and I stayed up talking until 2:30 this morning. It has been so wonderful having her here, and I think I like it better when it’s just one of the girls at a time – it gives us more one-on-one time.
We took a taxi to the airport and Danielle was on her way to Tucson at 10:45 am.
Sam and I came back and did school, then she was off to Sonya’s for the afternoon.
The north wind blew for several hours at 18-20 knots.
Dan and Sue came over while Sonya and Sam stayed at Hot Toddy.

 *I think I remember this exact day with Sonya and still have the photos she gave me of herself. You know, back when you couldn’t hop online at any ol’ time and see what was going on in your friends lives. Especially cruising - you never knew if you’d even hear from or see the other person again!

April 6, Saturday

Happy Easter

John has been filling the water tank every morning with water jugs.
I laid in the sun and took a nap – lazy day.
The bloody phone still won’t work.
We borrowed Captain Ron – always a good movie to enjoy on our own boat.

 *9/10 sailors agree Captain Ron is the best sailing movie out there!

April 7, Sunday

Grandma Roxanne gave Samie a book for Easter and they had colored some eggs, so this a.m. Sam painted designs on them. I cooked a big roast dinner with all the trimmings – wonderful!

*Roxanne was so sweet to me - I’m pretty sure this was the day she also gave me a cute little teapot after we’d had a tea party or two.

 April 8, Monday

Laundry day, laid in the sun – went to dinner with Dan, Sue and Sonya (Hot Toddy).
Very enjoyable evening.

April 9, Tuesday

John checked out – we did a big CC shop to head north. $1,240 pesos, or there-about or $167.00 U.S. But that will do until we get to San Carlos in about 4 to 5 weeks (maybe).
Water maker is working great – knock on wood – the problem was a burnt neutral wire. We got 3 letters today from P.V. that came up with Carousel.
After 2 weeks of the phone not working – it was a satellite problem – called Mom and Goon called – she has a date to prom with Daniel T.
Michael left today for somewhere in Colorado to work.
The crew of Hot Toddy came over for a farewell evening. Sue and Sonya will be leaving the boat, going back to the States, CA. Sue is diabetic and gets so sea sick that she is in danger of getting dehydrated. Too bad – she was great fun!

*I still love the various ways that we got our mail delivered to us! Everyone would address their letters to my Grandma and she would send them all together wherever we could arrange delivery. Sometimes it was to the marina offices, or friends who lived in the area like Crew’s Quarters, and sometimes as you can see it was like a little chain of helpers, passing things along. Stuff like that which came along with other boaters would have been arranged over the HAM radio during the morning radio nets. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I LOVE the nets! Both HAM and VHF. As a reminder, it’s basically a way for cruisers to organize themselves, help each other out, barter and trade, find crew, get local information and advice, pass along information and weather details, etc. I wonder how much all that has changed. I’ve actually considered getting a HAM radio just so I can listen to the cruiser’s nets in the morning. 🙃 I don’t know how much I enjoyed it at the time, but I love my memories of waking up to that damn static and white noise at 5 am! I could hear the weather updates and other such info being passed along, and everyone’s call signs as they joined and left the conversation. For those who don’t know, you have to announce yourself (your call sign) on the radio and wait to be acknowledged. Sometimes you can hear them, but they can’t hear you or vice versa; and because there’s no real way for them to know if you’re done talking or the signal is bad, you say “over” when you’re done speaking. When you’re exiting the conversation entirely, you indicate that with “over and out,” preceded by your call sign. In Dad’s case, KB7ZIK and Mom was KB7ZIL. They were referred to often as ZIK and ZIL, kinda like Jack and Jill. Cute! I was studying to get my HAM license for a bit but apparently got sidetracked with other interests as that hasn’t happened (yet).

 *It’s so funny looking back at how unwilling most people were to be on camera - back when regular, everyday people filming friends wasn’t exactly a regular thing. The video camera was more of a special occasion thing and used more among family than anyone else. So when friends or especially strangers had a camera on you - people mostly got uncomfortable (in my experience, anyway). But I’m glad we have these clips, it’s always a treat to have these little time capsules - even more so when there are few, if only one to remember someone by.

April 10, Wednesday

We called ‘Chelle this morning.
Pulled up anchor and headed to Ensenada Grande. Fluky winds all the way until we got to the anchorage – 10 knots out of the NE. Palio, Don and Roxanne, are with us and we all headed to the beach. Don and Samie hiked up to a cave.
We had caught a sierra mackerel; had that and pork chops with our goodies. Samie helped Roxanne bake a peach upside-down cake.

 *For whatever time I lost with extended family while out sailing, I am so grateful for all the cruising family I gained and all the cool random things they taught me. Baking, crafting, making pasta from scratch, painting, drawing, synchronized swimming, kayaking, sign language and I’m sure many other things I’m not recalling at the moment. I suspect this has some (a lot) to do with my wide variety of interests and ways of looking at life and the world around me. If you’re a cruising friend of ours reading this and you took me under your wing at any point of our cruising - THANK YOU! I love and appreciate your presence in my life and I am all the better for it. 🥰

April 11, Thursday

It’s back to school and hard at it to finish these last 40 lessons before we get to San Carlos.
John and Don went diving – John’s first time in the last year and a half. They came back with 25 scallops, so I wrapped them in bacon and BBQed ‘em over on Palio along with Don’s spaghetti.
There was no wind tonight after a NE blew all day at 15 to 20 knots. So we slept good after the Caramel blew in a big swell and bounced us around the night before.
Oh, when I talked to Mom the other night, she said we had a post card from Janice and Arne.

April 12, Friday

We left Ensenada Grande around 9:15 am and anchored at Los Islotes for a couple hours while Don and John scuba’ed with the sea lions. John had several he was playing with – they were using Don’s scooters, which push them around under water. He had a great time. I stayed in the dink this time.
We motored over flat seas to Isla San Francisco where we anchored in 18 feet of crystal-clear water. John dove and cleaned the propeller while Sam and I snorkeled and saw millions of sea worms, a moray eel and a needle fish, along with hundreds of puffer fish.
Palio came over for happy hour. At 9 pm the south wind is picking up at 7k. I guess it blew pretty good – 15 to 20 knots – we slept through it, but Palio was up on watch, but they are out farther.

April 13, Saturday

The last couple of months I’ve tried to find a nickname for Samie and tonight when John called her “Buffett” it stuck! She is always listening to Jimmy Buffett music – and thus she will be known as BUFFETT!
Some little fitting on the gen-set intake broke and we had water squirting – so that was John’s project today.
The guys went scuba-ing while the girls went shelling on the beach.
Tom on Island Trader brought us some ice cream from La Paz. So he came over for dinner.
Called Brenda, she said Steve is always out of town, that’s why we don’t get him on the ham. Mom had called her with Shine’s address – he’s in Loveland, Colorado. Brenda and Steve almost took a job there and say it’s a nice town and beautiful.

April 14, Sunday

Happy 22nd Chelle!

Last night the wind blew 10-15 k out of the north all night.
We left the crowded  (20 boats) of Isla San Francisco at 8:15 am. Zero wind as we started out, but was toot’en it up to 20 k from the north before we had our hook set at San Evaristo. All the other boats here are anchored over in the south cove, so we got a pick of the center here in the north cove – Palio came in behind us.
As soon as we were set, 10:10 am, we started school.
We remember last November being here with True Blue, Nanamuk, Ananda, Maiden Voyage and Quest. We sure are missing Nanamuk and True Blue on this return up to San Carlos.
John got some shrimp from a shrimp boat anchored here, he also caught a trigger fish and Don got more scallops, so we had kabobs.
The wind is still at 10-15 k at 8:30 pm. I would like a couple of nights with no wind.
Talked to Steve for a bit tonight.
John Roach called, all is well, we got a good refund on the last year’s taxes, but it will go to pay on 94s taxes owed.

*Once a parrot head, always a parrot head!

When I originally prepping this month’s details way back in August (sorry for the delay - I got distracted while life was happening!), I was revisiting my peak Jimmy Buffet memories: falling in love with more and more of his songs as I got my little hands on new cassette tapes, dancing and signing along and just loving how good his music made me feel…. The timing was wild, because on September 1, 2023, Jimmy packed up his bags and took his last sail toward the horizon, just in time for the " target="_blank">Labor Day weekend show. ❤ My little Buffett heart was broken and it still hurts to write about (I’m not crying, you’re crying!) Music has always had a profound effect on me and I have so much respect and admiration for the artists who have brought that music to the world. Music has the most amazing power to unite people, to cross language barriers, to bring all kinds and walks of life together in a space of harmony in a way that nothing else I’ve experienced can. The echo of this resounding loss went on for weeks - So many stories were being shared by fans across the globe who had met him, experienced him, been inspired by him, etc. By all accounts, he was just as absolute treasure and I cry because I’m so grateful for his presence in this world and even grateful to have been witness to him in the same lifetime, if that makes sense - not like an artist who’s already long passed, but one who I actually got you experience in their lifetime and to have seen live in concert!

SIP (Sail in Peace), Jimmy Buffet! ❤🦜

April 15, Monday

John walked up to the tienda while Buffett and I did school.

Equalized the batteries.

Wind continued to blow from the NW today, 10-20k. 3 other boats tried anchoring here in the north cove, but with the swirly winds, left and went to the south bay.

April 16, Tuesday

John, Don (Palio), and Tom (Island Trader) went scuba-ing around the north point. Buffett and I snorkeled around the boat. Happy hour was on Palio with fish, scallops and snacks.

Shine called, he likes where he’s at ok and seems to like the job. It was so good to hear his voice.

The wind was 5k from the SE with a little swell roll’en in. 96° today.

Goon called too, she’s happy and looking forward to her prom date.

April 17, Wednesday

We weighed anchor and left San Evaristo at 7:10 am, flat seas and no wind the first couple hours. Then W at 10k – shift 8k N and died out as we came in at 12:15 and dropped the hook in the north anchorage.
Between the Baja and San Jose we went through a pod of small dolphins, 4 whales, maybe minkie, and a shark swimming the surface. Beautiful day.
I think maybe we have broke away from the “herd”, there was no one else in the anchorage upon our arrival, and now it’s us, Palio, and Island Trader. Manuel came by, as always, in his panga to say hello, and tomorrow we should have lobster.
John dropped his sun glasses over the side, threw off his shirt and bandana and in he went for the rescue. Said it was refreshing! I thought it was funny, we have several more of the same sun glasses – but NOT red, white and blue!
No luck on any fish.

*I will always love reading about and remembering the locals coming out to greet the boats and get acquainted. It always made me laugh when some people in the States would ask how we weren’t scared in Mexico or how we felt safe because we had really great interactions. Of course there were some sour incidents here and there, that’s hard to get away from entirely, but on the whole we typically felt safe and made so many friends with the locals all over.

April 18, Thursday

John changed out the impeller on the raw water pump main engine, we’ve noticed the engine temp running a little hot. Also changed the solenoid on the gen-set, but that didn’t seem to be the problem. He thinks it’s the relay and it’s not always making the connection to start. Although it’s running now and he won’t change that unless he has to. He was in the engine room for around 3 hours. Thank goodness he doesn’t have to stand on his head to do the work like most boats.
This morning was so cold, only 65° but seemed like 50°. The days are getting hot if there’s no breeze.
We walked around on the beach for a bit.
Kochap, David and Trish came in this afternoon and came by for a couple hours. They are headed south  - bummer.
There are 10 or 12 boats in the bay tonight.
Oh – Tom Island Trader saw two Orcas swim past the mouth of the bay while he was diving the reef. Samie was so excited cuz they’re here – yet bummed cuz she missed them. I sure hope that she sees some – her dream!

*Over the years it seemed like everyone around us was seeing Orcas but us, it was torture cause I wanted so badly to see them with my own two eyes! I still haven’t seen any in the wild, but one day! One day it’ll happen!

April 19, Friday
 

We left Los Gatos (Bay of the Cat) at 8 am and arrived at Agua Verde at 12:40. En route we had zero wind and smooth, flat seas which enabled us to see much ocean life. A pod of small dolphins towards the Baja between us and Island Trader – several dozens of big mantas floating on the surface – none of whom would jump for the camera - off to the sea side near Isla Santa Catalina, about 20 miles to the east. Looking through the binoculars, they were the huge dolphins, for a while I thought they were Orcas – but could see no white. They were jumping – flipping and really putting on a show – too bad they were so far away!
There are 6 boats counting ourselves now in Agua Verde. The wind has picked up out of the north and is blowing 5k in here, but 20-25k on the outside. Galatea, Loren and Hillary – Abientot, Ed and Randi are on their way in here – we haven’t seen them since San Carlos.
We finally met the other s/v Wandrin’ Star, Wayne and Leslie. The boat was also named after the Lee Marvin song in Paint Your Wagon.
It still strikes me odd that the sun can go down on the port (or starboard) side of the boat AND come up on the same side! All depending on the tide coming and going and the wind direction.

April 20, Saturday

John snorkeled and came back with several treats.
Tom came over for dinner.
Not a lot happening in Agua Verde!

April 21, Sunday

Island Trader left Agua Verde this morning about 7 am and just as we were ready to haul in the anchor, he called to say it was blow’en 25-30k out there. Needless to say, we stayed put and Tom came back. As hard as it blew out beyond the point, 5-7k was all we had inside – nice and calm.
John, Tom and Hillary (Galatea) went clamming. John never saw any, but the others gathered up a few.
We went to the beach for a while in the afternoon.
Goon called in tears – the dress she bought in Flagstaff for the prom is too short for her dad and Melissa, the fuddy-duddies!

April 22, Monday

Tom left again this morning and John went to the beach to check out the other side – it’s flat and calm today so we left Agua Verde at 8:00 am headed for Escondido. It was a motor boat ride all the way – zero wind.
We passed through several pods of dolphins. I think I got some good video shots of them under the bow.
We made it into Escondido and anchored at 12:30 pm. 21 miles = 4.5 hours.
We all, Tom too, went into the trailer park and had a late lunch – early dinner and I did a small shop.
I talked to Steve on the HAM while John (0), Samie (3) and Tom (4) went fishing, John got skunked!

April 23, Tuesday

John called Kent and he also definitely has a job, working in the field this year.
John and Samie went in to get ice and beer – they came back with Kristen K. She’s 22 and a marine biologist down here doing studies on the whales. She spent several hours on our boat talking to Samie about how fascinating the whales and other marine life is. She’s a real nice person and very interesting to talk to.
Shine called for just a minute.

*I remember being so excited to meet Kristen, a marine biologist! I constantly had my nose in our reference books for fish, shells, starfish, dolphins, whales, etc. I have always been naturally curious and ready to ask all of the questions about how things work or why they do things the way they do - I’m sure I had boatloads of questions for her! Lol of course the only detail I remember from our visit was her explaining how they take samples from whale poop to extract information about the whale’s health and other factors and that whale poop is pink! There’s a chance I thought she was teasing me, ‘cause that just seemed so funny! It makes sense though, they eat krill, which are pink like shrimp. How sweet of her to stay and chat with us for a good while! She agreed to be my pen pal and wrote to me a few times. I cannot express enough how great it was to be treated more like an adult than a kid by all these great humans. It was really good for me. So, I dug through my letters and found a couple! She wrote to me twice from Hawaii, the second letter specifically from a tent in the rain forest in the middle of a storm and the other told me how after studying fin whales in Mexico, she studied blue whales near the Channel Islands in CA and about a time she woke up on Santa Rosa Island to see three little foxes looking down at her! After that, she went to Hawaii where she was studying birds when she wrote me. I’m sure I was absolutely tickled to get these letters from her!
Side note - if you’ve ever written me a letter, there’s a 9/10 chance I still have it! It might seem silly to pack around for all these years, but it’s such a treasure to go through them every now and again and remember all kinds of little details of loved ones that tend to slip away with time. 🥰

April 24, Wednesday

Happy B-day Grandma Davis

We left Escondido at 9:30 am headed to Ballandra on the north end of Isla Carmen. The only sea life was bait fish by the millions and a dozen or so 10-inch squid – we’ve never seen ‘em that big. We anchored at 12:30 – the only ones in the bay until Island Trader and Tumble Weed (their last name is Spear). Tom had gotten a bunch of clams and they were eating them raw – gross!

April 25, Thursday

We took our boat across to Loreto this a.m. at 8:00 – Tom went with us to get fuel and a few supplies – we were back and anchored by 1:30 pm.
John, Buffett and Tom went snorekling again, even Buffett can spot the clams.

April 26, Friday

Just before leaving Ballandra, a pod of dolphins swam and jumped their way across the mouth of the bay. We weighed anchor and were underway at 7:30 am. There is some fog sitting on the water next to the mountains.
Just out of Ballandra we saw a huge “boil” of bait fish on the surface, looks like the water is boiling.
Tom broke a bolt on his alternator just past Isla Coronado, so we all sat still in the water for an hour and 40 minutes while John took him over a bolt and helped him get it fixed. Once we got him going again, the fog settled in all around with a half mile visibility all the way to the bay of San Juanico. We came all the way in with the help of radar. Once inside, it was clear enough to anchor safely.
Last year it was blowing 20k so we circled and left. It’s beautiful in here, lots of little island rocks to snorkel. Which we did some this afternoon. Tom found several clams and we had happy hour on his boat with clams fixed every which way. Then we putted around in the dink fishing – no luck. The fog has rolled in again.

*I remember Tom and Dad encouraging me to try the clams, but I don’t know if I ever did. They would put a dab of hot sauce in the shell and then chuck ‘em back! They seemed pretty tickled about it in my recollection - I understand now that it was probably one of those moments where they were thinking, “How lucky are we?!” How amazing to wake up each day on those beautiful blue waters and to be treated to the freshest and cheapest seafood around!

April 27, Saturday

Samie had a test in school today. She did very good considering the way we’ve been doing school – just 1, maybe 2 days and then a couple days off. We plan to stay here for a few days and get most of the last 10 days done.
John and Tom went out on the point diving with the hookah, came back with lobster. Tom got 3 huge slipper lobsters.
John borrowed the hookah and cleaned the bottom of the boat real good.
Tom and Jim and Kitty (Summer Wind) all came over for happy hour. Lobster, scallops, fish, clams and potato salad. What a feast!
The wind blew out of the west all of last night at 10-12k. Turned and blew from the east all day at 10-12k. Now at 8:30 pm it has switched back to the west.
Peggy is going to the prom tonight. We called, she’s excited. Melissa had sewed some lace on the bottom of the dress she bought, now it goes to her knees. She got the yellow rose that I had Jo send her. She has called 3 times tonight while she’s waiting for Daniel, her date to get there – says she’s nervous. Her dress is black and white and her hair is in a French twist and I know she looks beautiful! I wish I could see her.
I forgot to write about the first night in Ballandra – we heard whales singing off and on through the night. It was beautiful and peaceful music, sounding similar to a soft flute. I even woke Samie up at 4:00 am so she could hear it.
John thinks it was the wind whistling through the rigging, but Tom also heard something similar – so whatever it was, it was beautiful!

*I love the reminders of how great we have it now as far as communication and keeping in touch. We were lucky enough to get phone calls and updates through the HAM radio - I don’t think we could have imagined being able to log online (internet was still pretty damn new at this point in time, kids!) and see updates on everyone’s lives. I think that would have blown our minds!
I love that Mom woke me up to hear this magic and I remember Dad being uncertain. It’s hard to tell with all the noises a boat makes - but being that Tom heard it, too, I think there’s a pretty decent chance it was whale song.

April 28, Sunday

John and Tom went out on the point again to dive. Later we took the video camera and taped all of the beautiful colors and different variety of shapes and textures of this big bay in San Juanico. Later we snorkeled - so many beautiful colored fish, eel, big green needle nose, butterfly fish, fan coral, puffers and tons of star fish. It’s so amazing, this underwater world.

*For the readers born before the year 2000, you should remember how we used to record home videos from the small tape onto a regular VHS tape. Then, in order to “wipe” the small tape clean, we would record over the other footage with “blank” video - thus the random clips from floor level or the CSPAN footage - before we used the tape again. I thought about editing those out to make the video shorter, but I like the reminder of how far we’ve come technologically in 30 years!

April 29, Monday

The night was a beautiful, calm, silky paradise covered with millions of bright, twinkling stars. This morning STARTED in the same tranquil way, but by 10 am, the north wind had started on a rampage! Tom in Island Trader left around 8:30 while it was calm, but before he made it to Saquicismunde just 6 miles up the Baja, he had up to 45k of angry wind. At one point, he was only making 2 knots forward progress. He did make it though. By noon, even behind the protection of the mountains, we were getting a steady 30k – and up to 35 and 40! There are white-caps breaking in here as the winds come down over the mountain only 1/8 mile in front of us. It’s really raging and breaking something fierce on the outside. This is a very good reminder of our crossing last year when we spent 22 hours like this underway from Mazatlan to La Paz.
Abientot and Galatea left Escondido this morning, but only 8 miles from here turned around and headed back to the south anchorage at Isla Coronado to get out of the 30-35k they had.
We spend the day on the boat, out of the wind. John did little projects, I baked cookies.
The wind finally laid down and died out at 8 pm when the sun set. It stayed calm all night so we were able to sleep.

April 30, Tuesday

Samie made a cross-stitch with a sail boat (Wandrin’ Star) and letters in the saying “Life in paradise is just right.” It is a beautiful creation that she made with no pattern, just her imagination! We put it inside a scallop shell and varnished it in to preserve – in another shell, we varnished in a boat card and strung them together to make a hanging chime sort of set up. Anyway, we will take these over to the cruiser’s shrine and leave as a memento of our being here.
Around 1 pm, the north wind kicked in again and blew 20-27k until around 3:30 or so, then laid down flat again.
The days are reaching up to 92° now and just barely cooling off at night.
We had “radio games” going on in the anchorage tonight with Abientot and Galatea playing songs on the VHF. It was a silly, fun time.
The normal west breeze blew from land tonight at 10k.

*Awe, I love the “radio games” on the VHF. It was kind of like our version of a group chat!
I really enjoyed cross-stitching for a couple years, my step mom had taught me and I remember loving all the patterns and designs you could do. It’s such a calming, meditative practice and I always felt so proud when I was done! I still have my little kit of supplies!