svcariba

Mainland Mexico – it’s been fun!

We are in our last anchorage on the mainland side and prepping to cross to the long awaited Baja! We are so looking forward to visiting our favourite anchorages and exploring the ones we didn’t get a chance to get to in our last two seasons. This current anchorage was a bit challenging to get to… but more about that in a minute. Let’s bring you up to date with our travels since La Cruz.

La Cruz really is like “velcro”!

In our last post we made mention of heading towards Mazatlan. We had friends there and also wanted to see Carnaval…. but the north winds had other plans for Cariba and crew. (Sorry Christina and Darren!) We sat for a several weeks in Chamela waiting for the northers to abate. It can be very challenging to make plans to meet up as the weather really dictates where and when you go. We are also not in a big hurry to head north as we are waiting for the Sea of Cortez to warm up. We were so cold up there last year and we are not in a hurry to repeat that experience! So we are slowing down and enjoying our time in the south.

Cruising the Costalegre!

Costalegre in espanol means the ‘Coast of Joy’ or the Happy Coast as many refer to it. It encompasses an area on the Pacific side of Mexico between Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco and Manzanillo, Colima. Brian and I have been to this area many times together; the first being in 2004 when we were just dating! Six years ago while sitting on the beach in Melaque, we first entertained the idea of long term cruising. There has been a lot of water under our keel since then!

Cruising the Baja Peninsula

As we were snorkelling and kayaking yesterday, I reflected on the last month of cruising and wondered why this anchorage felt different. We are currently on the mainland of Mexico and relaxing in Bahia Chamela. We both feel like we have “made it” and for the first time don’t feel the pressure of “where we are going next”. But that isn’t to say we haven’t had a great time since leaving Ensenada, it’s just that we feel like we are back in the Mexico we both enjoy. But before I tell you more about that, let’s talk about what we have been up to in the last five weeks.

Made it to Mexico!!!!

Wow… we have been in Ensenada now for just over 2 weeks and after a flurry of paperwork and bureaucratic hoops, we have been able to relax and let the impact of our achievement sink in. We travelled over 1500 nautical miles (1510 to be exact) since leaving home. We told you about the lion’s share of that in the last post, but let’s reflect on our journey through Southern California.

Highlights from our passage!

Many of you will have followed along with my posts on the PredictWind tracking page…and if you didn’t you can find them at the link below. But there is much more that happened behind the scenes that I didn’t capture in those short posts. Here I will share some of the highlights…keep reading to find out more about who got locked in the head and our birdie rescue!

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SVCariba/

The Big Adventure begins!

We are finally doing it! It has been a whirlwind time since we got back from hauling Cariba out at Texada. I have started writing this post several times..trying to determine an approach. Do I write about the last month of preparations or just cut to the chase and tell you about the start of our journey.

What’s up “dock”!? & Life isn’t too “hard”

So we have been home from Mexico since the end of March and the time has flown by. We have a new adventure planned for us and SV Cariba so preparations and projects are underway. So this means time on the dock…not sailing yet!

Reflections on our Sea of Cortez season

Sunrise over San Juanico… one of our favourite anchorages

When you experience tough times or personal challenges…it can be helpful to reflect back on both the ugly realities..but also some of the good things that happened. It isn’t all bad..and this season was a perfect example of this.

Moving forward!

We are fortunate to have this lovely place to rest and recuperate!

As many of you know, the last 6 weeks have been a bit traumatic (pun intended) and an emotional roller coaster. We are doing our best to look on the bright side – it could have been much worse – and are very thankful again for the wonderful people we have encountered on this journey.