1.9.2013 15:00pm 75F

So far, we have cruised for 4 days in south Sea of Cortez. The desert-like Baja mountains kept amazing us with her unique landscape and rustic nature. But today, as Gray Matter approached the infamous Isla Espiritu Santo, we were stunned — the real beauty of the Sea has just begun. Red rock mountains rise and fall, stretching the 8 miles along the N-S axis of the island, with short ridges extending westwards. These short ridges drop sharply into the water, forming the most wild-looking red cliffs. As many described before, it feels like the Grand Canyon, but only in water.

We anchored at Puerto Ballena, one of the three coves in the mid island. Turquoise water occupied the inner half of the cove, ending in white sandy beaches. A tranquil paradise.

Red cliffs surround the cove, with Baja Peninsula in the distance.

Continue reading →

1.9.2013 15:00pm 76F

Sea of Cortez is notorious for northerly winds in the winter. We just had our first taste in the last week. Four out of five days, strong wind blew out of the north, stirring up big swells, making northbound passage into Sea of Cortez very challenging. It is not comfortable but still doable in a trawler or powerboat, really a pain for those sailboats trying to sail up wind in deep swells.

We anchored at Bahia Los Frailes. Beautiful anchorage and very well sheltered from N wind and swell. We stayed there for 3 days to wait out these N winds.

Continue reading →

1.4.2013 15:00pm 76F

When we bought N6206, previously “Feeling”, we inherited a bunch of fishing gear with the boat. With little to none fishing experience, we kinda just left them as they were. Luckily, two weeks before we left San Francisco, Erik, our neighbor at West Point, helped us sorted out our fishing gear and gave us a few lessons on fishing. Knowing just enough to be dangerous, we rigged up two fishing poles, gearing up for our first fishing expedition on the way to Cabo.

It was one of the most beautiful days on this trip, blue sky and flat sea. We set the lines and just hung out in the aft pilothouse cockpit. Fishing or not, we had a blast watching all the sea life out there, dolphins, sea lions, whales.

Continue reading →

1.2.2013 15:00pm 70F

Once we decided to go to Mexico, one of my primary “tourist” attractions was the N62 that went on the rocks near Mag Bay April of 2006. We had spoken to James Lieshman who has been aboard about a year later and said most everything was intact. Besides a “Dreamer’s curiosity” – I had a few things I’d prefer not to buy from Nordhavn, like a new door handle for the side door, and a missing scupper door – that with the starboard following sea can sound like a sonic boom while napping the the master cabin.

From the image on Google earth (24° 27.444’N 111° 54.535’W) – you can see she’s laying on her side – so with the sat photo and coordinates we were ready.

Continue reading →

2013.1.1 18:00 PST 66F

It finally starts to warm up …

New year day, we just finished another overnight run (270NM), and arrived at Bahia Santa Maria. It really started to feel warm during this leg.

We had hundreds of dolphins joining the trip. They are beautiful creatures, enjoying playing in the bow wakes.

Continue reading →

12.30.2012. 13:00 PST 66F

Originally, we planned to stop at Turtle Bay after Ensenada. Tomas recommended Isla Cedros instead. We were skeptical, as the anchorage looks fairly exposed on the chart, but decided to check it out.

It is about 240 NM from Ensenada to Isla Cedros. Most of the trip was gorgeous — blue sky and following sea — Gray Matter averaged 8.9 knots the whole trip. We spotted several humpback whales on the way — they are HUGE.

Continue reading →

2012.12.29. 7:23 PST 65F
We had a very positive experience at Ensenada. Based on other cruiser’s recommendation, we planned our stay the Cruiseport marina. The staffs here are very professional, not only process the majority of paper works for custom clearance, immigration etc, also drove us to the immigration office and assisted the entire immigration procedure. It took us about 2 hours to get everything done, much faster than we had expected. After that, we got a ride to the TelCel, MX mobile carrier, to get a prepaid sim card and 3G data plan. Cruiseport even arranged an English-speaking lady to help us at Telcel.
Marina office

Continue reading →