HOME SWEET HOME!

After a very tiring and long journey we are now home in Scotland again. It is lovely and green, but freeeeezing cold, only 60 degrees F, and there is snow on the hills. We have found our winter woolens!
We plan to return to our new sailboat in Mazatlan, Mexico on October 19th.

Getting ready go go home

We are into our last week in Mexico for now. In fact, I should have been away last week, on Friday the 13th of May. Now wait a minute! Quite right. It all went wrong. We started printed my boarding pass, just to find that we couldn't! The reason was, that the plane had already left, so no boarding pass for me on that plane!
It wasn't meant to be. Now David and I are going home together on Wednesday 25th from Mazatlan to Scotland.

We are packing boat to sleep the hot summer and the hurricane season and saying good buy to all the new friends we have made here in the marina.

Here is from left: Gitte, David, Sasanna, Richard, Mike and Mike.

Billy, the Australian cattle dog on SV Wide Open.

The dock- cat, Slacker, who owns and rules the dock. He never lets a mouse, a rat or cockroach, let alone another cat near his kingdom!

Two happy chappies, David and the Aussie, Johnny McInnes, from Wide Open.

It's getting hot! The bees are looking for water.

Gitte washing the genoa.

More photos from trip to Baja

Seagull on the dinghy

Fishing camp. Local fishermen gut fish for the market in La Paz

Dramatic sandstone rock formation.

Pinicle

Sea-lions on the rocks.

Lunch is served.

Yellow- chested bird hitching a lift!

We put out a fishing line and caught a large tuna or marlin. It took us both, helping one-another, more than an hour to pull him in.We could see him in the water. He was big! Just as we were ready to pull him up, he gave a big jerk............ and disappeared into the deep blue sea! We were quite relieved as we wondered how to' land' such a sea-monster. But he was a big fish!

Sunset in the Sea of Cortez.

David on night-watch.

sailing to Baja

On Friday 29th April, day of the Royal wedding, David and I sat sail on Aquarius, as we still call her, and sat our course for Baja, the Californian Peninsula, 250 miles away. We were very excited and the boat did very well.

The winds were gentle till we reached the Baja coast after two days and nights sailing when we suddenly had a Northwesterly force 5 on the nose. We were struggling and 'wilting' but fortunately David found a safe heaven, Los Muertos, with excellent shelter in a northerly wind.

We couldn't get off the boat for two days due to high wind and sea, but lighted the anchor next day as the wind had abated and veered. We sailed all day up through Channel Cerrolvo. When the sun was setting in the evening, the wind died and the sea was totally glassy calm. The engine was on, and in Channel de Lorenzo, three miles from the anchorage, the engine died on us just as we had taken in the main sail. What a classic mistake!

No way could we start the engine again. Fortunately the dinghy was hanging in the davits above the stern. We lounged it and David tugged the yacht safely all the way in to the anchorage. I was alone on the boat steering, navigating, using the autohelm, working the GPS and increasing the lights so that I could read the instruments, and eventually putting down the anchor. This was a total learning curve to me. The boat was new and David had been doing all of these till now, and he was in the dinghy, happy as a sandboy unable to hear me. I can tell you my adrenalin was flowing!

However, all went well and the next few days we did some good sailing and beautiful anchorages with glassy turquoise water.

We made shore expeditions a few times to find barren shores and dessert.

We did some snorkeling and saw a lot of different fish. Out in the sea we saw both whales and lots of dolphins. At the most northern of the three islands we visited we saw and heard sea-lion.