Vol 1 Iss 9: One Day in the Life of a Cruising Couple

June 19, 2022 | Puerto Refugio, Isla Ángel de la Guarda, Sea of Cortez, Mexico | 29º32’10” N 113º33’00” W | Winds: N 13 kts | Weather: 103ºF STRONG sun

Puerto Refugio, Isla Ángel de la Guarda, Sea of Cortez, Mexico

“What do they do all day every day?”  

Raise your hand if this thought has crossed your mind.

The question occupied our thoughts before we set off a year ago.  People asked us and we looked at each other, bewildered, “Yeah, what are we going to do all day every day??”

We had no idea what to expect, but we figured we’d be sailing every day, tacking and jibing through channels like we spent our days in the San Juan Islands.

A year later, we know better.

In reality, we only spend 1-2 days a week sailing.  On average 2 more days are spent doing boat maintenance and cleaning the boat (the inside, the outside, and the underbelly below the water).  

The other 3-ish days…well I thought today I’d give you a peak into One Day in the Life of a Cruising Couple.  

What follows is an account of an actual day…not necessarily a typical day - as we now go several weeks between hints of civilization - though not atypical either.   It’s a day full of working around the constraints of boat life, exploring, suffering the effects of stupid decisions, and magical delight.   It’s our life and so far we love it.

7:00 Reveille!  It’s up and at ‘em.  Last night since we were at anchor, we didn’t sleep in the spacious bed in the bouncy front of the boat (the v-berth).  Instead we slept in the dining-room-turned-bedroom.  So like in an RV, we convert our bed back to the dining table.  Andrés Jacobo climbs out of the boat to check the anchor, the wind, and the position of the other boats in the anchorage.    

7:30 For breakfast I eat instant oatmeal while he eats cereal with almond milk.  “I don’t even remember what a banana looks like,” he bemoans the lack of fresh produce now 22 days since our last grocery shop.

8:00 I prep the black beans for lunch.  On the boat, a lot of our meal planning and cooking methods are based on the constraints of boat life.  Our tightest constraint is trash space.  Our goal is to go 28 days between trash drop-offs, but so far we’ve only made it 21.  The second constraint - which Andrés Jacobo enforces with vigor - is boat weight.  The heavier the boat, the slower we sail so it’s imperative to stay light.    The last constraint is propane.  We carry 2 30-pound propane tanks but they’re quite difficult to refill.  Plus, the more propane we use, the hotter the boat gets.  Now that it’s over 100ºF, we loathe adding any more heat to the boat.  We eat beans almost every day, but canned beans are terrible for the trash and the boat weight.  Cooking dried beans on the stove for an hour would turn the boat into a sauna. Instead, I soak the dried beans overnight, bring them to a boil on the stove, and put them into a thermos.  Four hours later we have deliciously cooked beans without adding anything to the trash or adding much heat to the boat.

8:30  Time to drop the kayak into the water and put together our paddles for the trip to shore later.  

9:30  Andrés Jacobo uses our IridiumGo! satellite phone to download weather forecasts.  He downloads several different models and we compare them to strategize for the days ahead.  Looks like we can stay here in this anchorage tonight, but we’ll need to leave tomorrow morning to get some protection from the southerly wind and waves coming.  This daily activity is one we didn’t foresee as being a daily chore.  Everyday we must ask ourselves, “Where can we sleep safely and comfortably tonight?”  

We also need to start thinking about the month ahead.  We need to be in Puerto Peñasco by the end of June.  We back into the time frames so we know when we need to leave Santa Rosalía, when we need to be in Bahía de Los Angeles, etc.  We sketch out a rough calendar while keeping in mind the truism, “Cruisers write their plans in the sand at low tide.”

10:30 Reading hour.  I’m working my way through some ‘meatier’ books since I have some mental space to ponder.  Just finished Hope in Times of Fear and about to start The New Jim Crow.  Andrés Jacobo re-reads the watermaker operating manual for the hundredth time, a seeming waste of time that somehow always manages to pay off in the most opportune moments.    

11:30  Lunch is spicy black bean tuna salad with the black beans from the thermos and fresh cilantro from the farm in San Juanico.

12:00  Together we hand wash all of the lunch dishes.  We spend an inordinate amount of time washing dishes.   

Andrés Jacobo sets up the solar shower so we can take hot showers later.  Ana María had a water heater when we bought her, but the water heater had corroded and was leaking water over the ENGINE BATTERIES!  We yanked that sucker out of the boat and looked for another place to install one.  We quickly learned why the factory installed the water heater over the batteries…there is literally no where else it would fit on the boat.  We decided to sacrifice hot water on the boat for reliable batteries.  We use a kettle to heat water on demand, but we use a solar shower to heat water for our showers.  It’s a 5-gallon black bag that traps heat when we put it out in the sun.  After only a couple of hours, the water is heated enough for a warm shower.

The Mainsail

Imagine a town with narrow, winding streets, people on every block carefully sweeping their sidewalks that are covered with the shade of flowering desert trees.  

Imagine a town so safe the parents let their little kids walk home from school and play in the streets at dusk.

Imagine a town so amiable that even the marina security guards stop by your table to greet you while you eat your dinner on the patio at the local restaurant.  

Imagine a town built by a French copper mining company, full of Mexicans, now run by Koreans.

Imagine a town where at the turn of the 20th century huge sailboats used to arrive (via Cape Horn) from Hamburg, carrying provisions and equipment, then making the 200-day return journey full of copper.  

Imagine a town where when you hear the scuffs of tennis shoes against a court floor, you cross the street to follow the sounds and find yourself at the quite competitive regional basketball tournament.  

Imagine a town in rural Mexico where you can attend Mass in a church designed and submitted to the 1889 World’s Fair by Eiffel (as in the Tower…) then broken into pieces, shipped via sailboat, and reconstructed by the Boleo mining company.

Imagine a town that’s turned into a tv production set,  complete with 200 extras, high tech production equipment, and a plaza-turned-county-fair scene all for the Netflix show “American Jesus.”  

Imagine a town full of people so warm and helpful that when looking for a resistor for your broken voltmeter you head to the local hardware store.  The cashier doesn’t think they have any, but she brings over the manager to confirm for you.  You lose hope when the manager shakes his hand before saying, “There’s a customer in the store right now who fixes coffee makers.  He might have one.  I’ll go find him.”  You watch him return quickly with Mr. Fix-It who looks dubiously at the part you’re attempting to replace.  “I don’t know that I have one, but I’ll look at my house and come by your boat later.”  You’re rather confident you’ll never see him again.  Two hours later, Marco Antonio, the friendly marina security guard knocks on your boat, “I have an electrician here to see you.”  Mr. Fix-It gives you 10 resistors that might work.  You’re blown away by the level of service and kindness of strangers.  

You’ve just imagined Santa Rosalía:  the best little town in Baja!

The Galley

Have you ever seen the cases of sweet breads or “pan dulce” in a Latin American supermarket?   Pan dulce is said to have become a staple of the Mexican diet when France invaded parts of Mexico under Napoleon.  We’ve tried it once or twice but haven’t really loved it until we arrived in Santa Rosalía.  The Panadería Boleo (company bakery) was established in 1901 and has been serving fresh French baguettes and flaky pan dulce ever since.  Their treats rival anything you can find in a boulangerie in Paris and you can’t beat the price!

The Entertainment

“Do you want to be on my kayak team on Sunday?” asks Pansho, the marina’s frontdesk guy, when he finds out we’re extending our stay in Santa Rosalía due to weather.  “Uhhh?” Andrés Jacobo looks at me, wondering if I’ve understood what Pansho just asked.  “Is it competitive?” Andrés Jacobo queries. “Oh very!”  Not sure if that’s good or bad, not even sure what it means for us to be on ‘his kayak team’,  Andrés Jacobo agrees for both of us.  

Turns out, we’re in Santa Rosalía during a weeklong celebration of the Navy that includes a soccer tournament, a fishing derby, a volleyball game, and a kayak race in the harbor.  The various harbor institutions (the marina, the Navy, the Port Authority, etc.) enter teams into the events with cash prizes and we find ourselves representing the marina.   There is a buzz in the air as the crowd of about 100 people gathers, the participants getting a little jittery about this ‘very competitive’ kayak race. 

The jovial emcee welcomes everyone to the event, saying in his microphone, “We’ve got a great turnout today from the port authority, the technical school, the mining company, and,” he turns, gesturing toward Andrés Jacobo and me, “we even have FOREIGNERS!”  Never been introduced quite like that before…I’m not sure if he’s setting high expectations for us or low.  All eyes turn to rest on us as we smile meekly.  

The mile-long race is more challenging than expected with the wind and current fighting us.  The other kayakers seem to have mistaken this for bumper boats and we get knocked around a bit as our fellow racers get control of their kayaks.   We stay balanced and manage to stay in our kayaks the whole time, successfully avoiding a water rescue from the Navy boats standing guard to pull kayakers-turned-swimmers to safety.  I come in 5th in my heat.  Andrés Jacobo finishes 5th overall!  He says he didn’t want to win and take the cash prizes away from the locals.  Uh huh…suuure :-) 

A good time was had by all!

12:30  We plan to spend the rest of the day onshore doing a variety of excursions so we start to pack up the kayak with seats, our hiking backpack, our Nalgenes, snorkeling gear to explore the 3rd snorkel spot in the bay, the sail for the kayak, money for dinner ashore, snacks, and lots of sunscreen.

1:00  Finally we have everything ready to go so we hop into the kayak and set up the sail.  We’re in dangerous territory…not because of the sea, but because of the task.  One person steering the kayak + one person wrestling with the sail + 3 ft waves + 18 kts of wind = Instant conflict.  We wonder aloud if we fight more than the average couple because we have 2 strong personalities (“as iron sharpens iron”…) or if marriage wasn’t designed to withstand daily tandem kayak trips.  After briefly considering giving up and heading back to the boat, we apologize, make peace, and get the sail and kayak pointed in the right direction.  

It turns out to be an exhilarating ride!  We surf the 3 ft seas in the kayak, covering the 4 nm to Burro Beach in no time with only a couple of strokes of the paddle to steer.  We round the point flying at 5 kts - faster than we typical sail on the sailboat - and nearly crash land on the beach.  

1:30  Up the “Zick-Zak” hike we go with Bell Rock as our destination.  As we hike, we knock on the reddish-brown rocks that ring like a bell due to the high concentration of iron.  The hike is brutal, the heat unbearable.  I struggle up the switchbacks but make it to the top slowly with frequent water breaks and vows never to ever EVER hike at this time of day again.  The view is worth the climb:  At the top of Bell Rock we’re treated to a panoramic view of the bay and Ana María tucked into one of the anchorages below us.  

2:30  On the hike down, we look for the Amerindian petroglyphs that supposedly line the trail, but are disappointed not to spot any.  We hike above Hwy 1 and are surprised by the lack of traffic.  We count 2 cars per minute on the only paved road from Tijuana to Cabo.  We thought we were in a remote location but now we really feel it!

3:00  In search of some bananas for Andrés Jacobo’s breakfast, we explore JC’s which turns out to be a combination restaurant, fire station, and library.  No produce though.  Andrés Jacobo asks the owner if there’s a tienda (small grocery store) nearby.

3:10  We head off towards the tienda, walking in the brush to avoid the highway traffic.  It’s a great time for a mini Spanish lesson for me.  Andrés Jacobo’s encounter with the owner just now included some very useful phrases so I make him replay his conversation so I can learn.  He recounts it but all I hear is “blah blah blah.”  “¿Puedes hablar mas despacio?” He slows down and for the next 10 minutes he breaks the phrases into pieces I can manage, me repeating, him correcting, until finally I can mimic his earlier conversation:  “¿Lo puedo hacer una pregunta?  ¿Sabe si hay una tienda en esta autopiste?”

3:20  This tienda is a treasure!  There are coolers filled with cokes and vegetables.  There is bread - some loaves expired one week already but some loaves still fresh.  Lots of snacks and chips.  Fresh tortillas from Santa Rosalía.  We buy bottles of Pedialyte and Coca-Cola (both cold!), limes, bread and syrup for French toast tomorrow.  I mess up when I try to say “Have a nice day!” to the cashier, but my botched Spanish is received with a smile.  We sit outside the tienda to sip our drinks and recover from the hike. 

3:40  We walk from the tienda to Playa el Burro, passing the luxury rental yurts and the many RVs from British Columbia.   The houses on the other beach were made of stone, but the houses on this beach are…well, they’re interesting.  A reviewer on the marine version of Yelp described the development as “a very friendly anchorage in a bay lined with houses which appear to be primarily made of materials which wouldn’t be missed if a storm blew them away.”  Up close they’re clearly well maintained, but they are made of a mishmash of plywood and meshes.  

4:00  We had hoped to snorkel, but the wind hasn’t died yet so the surf is too rough for snorkeling to be any fun.  Instead we swim at the beach.  Unlike other areas of Baja, this seems to be where the Mexicans come to vacation.  Except for the RVs from BC, we share the beach with Mexican families.  We swim in the waves next to Mexican dads teaching their kids to swim, delighted with the giggles as the children surf the waves themselves.

5:00  We get out of the water and let the hot sun dry us off so we can go to dinner.  

The Wildlife

“Aaaaa-wooooooooo!  Aaa-WOOOOOOOOO!”  These days we go to sleep to the sound of HOWLING COYOTES!  We’re in very remote areas so the coyotes roam the beaches of the anchorages.  It’s fun to listen to at night, but it makes us a bit skittish on our trips to the beach.  Thankfully, we found out on our hike from El Quemado to Ensenada el Pescador the coyotes are as scared of meeting us on the beach as we are of them.

The Challenge

The farther north we’ve traveled, the fewer anchorages there are that are well charted with accurate depth soundings.  This makes anchoring quite stressful.  After one particularly rolly and sleepless night in San Francisquito, we gave into the temptation of an anchorage called Estanque or The Pond.  It promised swell protection from all directions which persuaded us despite the absence of any reliable charts for the rocky entrance.  

We were quite pleased with our entrance into the Pond.  We went in at high tide giving us our best chance at avoiding any rocks.  The sun was high and behind us so Andrés Jacobo climbed up the mast to do “tropical navigation”, spotting the shallow waters from above and directing me to safe areas.  When we first started boat work, we weren’t exactly stellar communicators (our boatyard friends and our friend Mark can attest to this) but we eventually learned some key lessons that we put into practice for this situation.  We used walkie-talkies to communicate instead of the adrenaline-producing yelling.  We worked out a communication protocol, e.g. “I’ll always tell you the direction to go, not the direction to avoid.”  Having learned from the mistakes of a fellow cruiser who, when she ran aground, turned into the reef instead of backing out of it, we decided if I saw 1.5 meters below us, I would reverse straight back.  It all paid off.

We were feeling pretty snug in our smooth anchorage until we realized, “How are we going to get out of here???”  The tides were weakening over the next couple of days so we wouldn’t have the safety of the extremely high tide we had coming in.  We also couldn’t leave at night the way we entered, otherwise we would sail in the dark to the next anchorage.  To mitigate our risk of running aground, we decide to make our own depth-soundings and chart a way to exit.  

It’s not hard to make a leadline by marking feet on a string and tying it to one of my diving belt weights.  We jump in the kayak and trace the path we used to enter the Pond.  It’s quite scary to see at low tide all of the rocks that had been right under our keel as we entered.   I’m dropping the weight out of the boat to the bottom and marking the depths so we can find a better way out when “PLOP!”  The line and weight slip out of my hands and down to the bottom of the sea.  “Make a location mark on your phone!” I yell to Andrés Jacobo.  He marks it and we spend 10 minutes searching for the line in vain.  It’s too hard to see the bottom without goggles, so we kayak back, I peel on my wetsuit and snorkel gear, and we head back for the mark showing where we dropped it.  Sure enough!  Not a minute later I’ve spotted it and have it in hand.  This view of the underwater topography turns out to be much clearer than the view from the kayak so we spend an hour with me taking depths in the water and Andrés Jacobo recording them.  

The next day we’re ready to leave, confident in the safe-water channel Andrés Jacobo has created out of the depths we sounded.  The channel is marked on our iPad chart plotter and I get ready to steer through the channel while Andrés Jacobo climbs the mast just as a backup navigation method.  Our problem is pretty clear pretty quickly:  The GPS on the chart plotter doesn’t update as fast as we’re moving so there’s a delay.  I’m steering with a significant delay in the position reading.  In such a tight channel, that means I am way off course.  “PORT!  PORT!  GO TO PORT!” he screams in the walkie talkie.  “STARBOARD!  NOW STARBOARD!” Despite our fancy work to chart an electronic channel, we end up leaving with the old fashioned eyeball navigation and screamed directions.  My mouth goes dry when I see in our depth sounder we only have 6’2” under the waterline and we have 4’2” of boat under us!   Thankfully we manage to slip through the exit without scraping the rocks at the bottom.

The Lingo

Tropical Weather Outlook from the National Hurricane Center (NHC):  The report that tells us whether we are in the path of a tropical storm or hurricane.  The NHC publishes an update we can download on our satellite phone.  It’s a human-generated forecast (not just based on theoretical models) providing probabilities of ‘cyclone’ activity evolving into a storm or hurricane over the course of a week.  We’re already seeing named storms pop up in the outlook, but luckily Agatha, Blas, and Celia have all passed way south of us.  

5:20  Tonight we take a break from the galley (and washing dishes!) to eat at the highly-recommended Bertha’s restaurant.  We settle into a corner table with a gorgeous view of the beach and our kayak.  We watch the kayak like hawks, making sure no one decides they want it more than we do.  We order guacamole and the waiter-recommended tacos.  We’re relaxing to the DJ-mixed Spanish guitar music, waiting for the food, when a tiny car with 3 Mexicans pulls up and blocks our gorgeous view.  Previously, we’ve used confrontation to try to get what we’ve wanted (i.e. our beach view back)…that hasn’t worked out so well for us.  Instead, we’re going to be calm and try to relax anyway.  The 3 men sit at a table next to us and we start to talk.  They are on a roadtrip from Tijuana to Cabo and back.  Each way is taking them about 20 hours and they’ve decided to use the time to practice their English.  They’re friendly, outgoing guys.  

Shortly after we get our food, the waiter brings out a huge bottle of Pacifico beer we didn’t order.  One of the guys turns to us, “I always love it when I feel welcome in your country so I want you to feel welcome in mine.  Enjoy a beer on me!  Cheers!”  We clink our bottles with theirs and offer a ¡Salud! of our own.  How nice are they!?! 

The only downside to their generosity is we must drink the entire thing out of respect and then we must kayak 4 miles back to Ana María.  We eat our shrimp tacos and gulp our beer.

6:40  It’s time to leave Bertha’s if we want to make it back to the boat in the daylight.  We wave goodbye to our new friends and start to paddle.  The paddle back is much harder since we are paddling against the wind that still hasn’t died completely…not to mention the beer still gurgling in our tummies.  

An older gringo pulls up beside us on his jetski.  “Ummm where are you going??”  “We’re headed to our boat in Playa Santispac.”  Our boat isn’t really anchored there, but we have a policy to not tell exactly where our boat is while we are off it.  It’s the cruising version of leaving your lights on a timer switch when you go on vacation.  The man seems skeptical that we’ll make it, but we reassure him we’ll be fine.  He offers to tow us back to our boat, a generous offer, but he is clearly oblivious to the fact that his jetski is spouting water directly into the kayak and swamping us.  We decline a swamped ride back.  He idles beside us as we paddle, kindly telling us where to find the hot springs nearby and letting us know there will be a lunar eclipse tomorrow.  Finally he takes off and we paddle the rest of the way against the choppy seas.  

7:40  We arrive with daylight to spare and notice there are now 6 new boats in the anchorage - 1 is anchored uncomfortably close to us.  We’ll keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t swing into us.  The sun was working while we were out playing and the water in the solar shower is now a piping 115ºF.  Andrés Jacobo hangs the bag from the mast, leads the hose through the port light into the head, and sets up the shower curtain. We take turns in the shower, sharing the 5 gallons of hot water then dry the shower curtain and wipe down the head to minimize mildew.  

8:30  Time to download new forecasts so we can confirm we’re still in a safe anchorage.  We use the satellite phone to send our parents the once-daily “we’re safe” text then sit under the full moon in the cockpit, sipping chilled Abuelita (Mexican cinnamon-spiced hot chocolate), eating cookies, and reading aloud to each other from “The Bird Way” by Jennifer Ackerman.  

9:30  To ensure a boat doesn’t run into us in the night, we flip on the anchor light at the top of our mast before brushing our teeth and converting the dining table back into our bed for the night.  

10:00  We pray the prayer Andrés Jacobo has prayed since he was a little boy in Medellín, “Angel de mi guarda, me dulce compañia, no nos desamparos ni de noche, ni de día.  Hasta que nos dejas en paz y allegría con todos los angelitos, con Jésus, José, y María.  En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo, et del Espíritu Santo.  Amen.”  We fall asleep with the light of the full moon streaming through the hatches.  

The Horizon

Never thought I’d say this but we’re sailing toward Arizona.  We’re avoiding the tropical storms by sailing as far north in the sea as we can (about 50 miles south of the border in Arizona).  We’ll haul out the boat and spend hurricane season out of the water, working on the boat, and spending some time with our families.

Fair winds and following seas,

Katherine