Loreto and heading South towards La Paz

This is a medley of photos from our last month of the sailing season, now known as "Year 3". We are almost ready to start "Year 4".  So enjoy the beauty and fun below; it is sure motivating us to start the journey south towards the Border and beyond.  Soon we will start another season aboard Shindig. 

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After rendez-vousing with Rob's parents, Bert and Alice Novak, in the Sea of Cortez last April, we had the luxury of time to slowly make our way South together, back towards La Paz.

Fortunately we could share some of our Novak Shindigs with other cruisers, particularly Agave Azul (Katie and Robyn) and Pangaea (Mike and Katie).  Yes, we still refer to our friends first with their boat name, and then their first names.  

Shindig inching South in 5 knots of wind

(great photo opportunity)

Elegante and Shindig in V-Cove at Isla Carmen

This is a good sign, a Cell tower in Loreto
(poorly disguised as a Palm Tree)

Mom and Nancy in Loreto

Rob and Nancy at the beautiful Posada de los Flores hotel
There is a swimming pool overhead!

Nuestra Senora de Loreto (Our Lady of Loreto) Church

Once at Puerto Escondido (Hidden Port), we relaxed aboard our boats and enjoyed daily dinghy rides to shore for shopping at the little store, a few meals at the new restaurant, laundry and socializing with other cruisers.  

Dad, Nancy and Rob decided to go on a hike to find a trail head up the mountains.  Above are  our shadows on the long, hot walk to the Steinbeck Canyon trail head. 

Major culvert project to divert water from the canyon away from the highway 

It was a secluded "hike' with lots of opportunities to say "Con Cuidado" - Be Careful!!   

Boulder hopping up the stream bed

Bert Novak at one of several pools up the canyon

On to Agua Verde:  We were happy to catch up with friends Katie and Mike on SV Pangaea.  

Surprisingly, this little market has a decent supply of fresh vegetables, tomatoes, onions, cilantro and potatoes.  We always try to purchase something from these little tiendas to support and thank the locals for giving us access to their little paradises.

Katie and Alice aboard Shindig

Bert and Mike solving world issues

Another favorite stop is Los Gatos, distinguished by reddish rock. 

Rob caught a lobster and we all enjoyed that! 

Family feast aboard Elegante

San Evaristo:  Our friends Charlotte and Steve have continued to help this little fishing community through enabling a new restaurant, keeping the local kids happy and healthy and encouraging other cruisers to do the same.  We thought "Shindig Man", a candy-filled Pinata from the mainland, would bring more smiles to these little boys.  

Local kids were thrilled to meet "Shindig Man"

Shindig Man and view of San Evaristo Cove

Charlotte and two of her little friends

Another year passed, and it's time for Rob's birthday month (May).   We were on his favorite platform, Shindig, in the beautiful Sea of Cortez, with family and friends.  What more could he ask for? 

A Birthday Celebration for Rob

Feliz Cumpleanos Rob!

Katie (Agave Azul) and Alice (Elegante)

Salud y Amor!

PODS.

Part of the romance of sailing away on your sailboat could include getting rid of every material possession or perhaps storing everything at your friends' homes.  In our case, we have done a bit of each, as well as contributed to the healthy business model of the national PODs business.  Three years ago, one of the final steps before our departure was having two empty PODs delivered to our driveway. With the help of some local packing resources we picked up in a nearby parking lot, we carefully packed each POD to capacity with our "treasures". And off the PODs went to some undisclosed location.  Out of sight, out of mind!

August 2012: Goodbye Precious Things 

Fast forward three summers later. Now we felt compelled to check in on the PODs.  We didn't even know where the storage area was. I had always described a PODS storage facility as similar to one of those non descript data centers, larger than several football fields, with semi-truck size containers inside, each housing hundreds of racks of computers.  You know, where all of our secure data is housed in the Cloud.  I have actually toured one of Microsoft's big ones in Chicago; it was an impressive field trip.  

With one phone call, Rob arranged for us to look at our Pods.  And we also brought more things to store, just in case there was room.

Not exactly Google Maps, but we felt confident we were nearing our destination...

A peek inside the Storage Facility - it was dark and scary

Our friendly warehouse and forklift operator.  We are getting to know him this summer.  He is a pretty cool laid back guy. 

And behind Door #1...Rob opens the POD with great anticipation

POD #1   
Things have shifted a bit. Miraculously nothing appears broken.  

Note the custom made wooden box on the right; that stores one of our Christmas wreaths.

POD #2
And More!

We spent a lot of time reorganizing each entrance of the POD so that they would be packed better, and have room for more treasures.  

Rob, don't fall in!

One more carload of things from the Attic go into the PODs

Ship Shape Organization!

Nancy finds a treasure in the PODS

We've had more time this summer getting things re-organized, downsizing a bit more and preparing for our return to Shindig.

The PODs business is continuing to work for us. Someday within the next year we hope to be unloading all these treasures, and giving up our space in the warehouse.

Isla Carmen Rendezvous

With the mast project finished, we were eager to meet Rob's parents and do some buddy-boating in the Sea of Cortez.  Our boat projects in LaCruz went a little long so we made a plan to speed up our passage north and do a two day trip from Mazatlan to Isla Carmen.

The crossing was pretty benign, leaving Mazatlan early in the morning, and arriving 50 hours later.

Our overnight watches are now more fluid.  Rather than a set 4 hours on/off we now start watches after dinner and target 3 hour shifts at night.  If the person on watch is doing well they will extend and wake up the other person when they start to tire.   This worked well for us and as a result we averaged 5 hours for day shifts and 3.5 hours for night shifts.  We had plenty of food to eat, some prepared in advance, other meals easy to make during the passage.  

On the second day we dragged some lures though a pod of excited dolphin.  We have learned that Tuna often feed on the same bait fish that dolphin enjoy.  Sure enough we landed a nice Yellow Fin tuna. 

After two days and two nights, at 7:30 in the morning we arrived following an incredible moon set behind Isla Carmen.

It was great to see Mom and Dad and share stories of our separate travels.  We also started making plans together for our leisurely 130 mile trip back to La Paz.

Shindig sunset on our first night out

Excited dolphin spinning lead us to yellow fin tuna

Sushi anyone?

Elegante and Shindig anchored in turquoise green water of Bahia Salinas

Mom and Dad Novak on the way to collect some clams

After an hour of surface diving, we had plenty of clams

Amazing beach at Bahia Salinas

Mom and Nancy chillin' on the sun deck of Elegante

What's for dinner?

Buen Provecho!!

1000 Days Away!!!

For those who have been following our online blog you may have noticed that there is a day counter on the right hand side.   This served as a countdown meter as we prepared for our trip in 2012 and then started counting the days since departure after we sailed out of San Francisco Bay, September 15, 2012.

Day One!  Sailing out the Golden Gate

Can you believe it has been 1000 days?  

Well, here we are.  It has not been 1000 days at sea, and thank goodness, not 20000 Leagues Under the Sea. But we have been "away".  We've enjoyed our California and Mexican cruising aboard our beloved Shindig.  We've enjoyed our summer couch surfing in the US and Canada.  It has been an amazing journey.  It feels like we've had 10 years of adventures instead of less than 3.

We have met hundreds of cruisers, made many dear friends, and celebrated the little and the big milestones together.  The ease at which friendships flourish with other cruisers and local Mexicans is truly amazing.  The new relationships we have developed on this adventure are the most cherished part of the nomadic 1000 days.   In addition to the new friendships we've also grown closer to many of our "landlubber" friends and family as we enjoyed the generous hospitality during our homeless summers.

Many of our sailing friends have continued travel to Central America and the South Pacific.  Others have completed their sailing adventures and returned home full time.

HarkerBoard SUP relay race team.  Katie, Mike, Rob and Wendy. (La Paz October 2013)

One of the most difficult things we encounter when moving around so much is saying goodbye to new and old friends.  Often it really isn't goodbye though.  More times than not we are reunited during the cruising season in different anchorages or marinas or in the next season.  Sadly, we have lost a good friend this year and must say goodbye.  "Wendy on Willow"  was an amazing woman.  She single handed her sailboat to Mexico and brought the "sunshine" where she went.  We bumped into her on and off for two seasons, shared birthday celebrations, dinners in remote anchorages and some impressive paddleboarding.  We will miss her free spirit and endless optimism.  Even as her cancer and treatment debilitated her she wrote inspirational love notes to all her friends.  Amazing!
While we mourn the loss of a good friend we also celebrate her spirit, sense of adventure and the positive impact she made on everyone she met.  

So what is next for the Shindig crew?

As we write this, Nancy is in Northern CA, visiting her mother and Rob is in Southern CA spending time with his parents, and brother's family.  Our remaining June travel schedule includes separate trips to Boston and Texas and a nice drive up the California coast together.

Our plan is to walk into our house July 1st and begin the process of getting it ready for sale. It's time for a new home base, one that we can come and go from while we continue our travels.

We both thank you all for your interest and support of our travels, and your friendship.  

"Gracias, Muchos Gracias!!"

"Merci Beaucoup" (gotta start refreshing on the French for Shindig's eventual trip to the South Pacific) 

And Nancy's mom (age 89) just recalled this phrase, 
"Takk Takk Tusen Takk",
(A Thousand Thank You's in Norwegian)

With Gratitude, Rob and Nancy

Rob and Nancy delivering a candy filled "Shindig Man" to the children in San Evaristo

Rob and Nancy in Barra de Navidad at sunset

Shindig checks into the Boat Spa

Shindig has taken good care of us for three seasons in Mexico;  it was time to check her into the "Boat Spa" for some TLC.  The tropical weather and heat takes its toll on wood teak decks, fiberglass, gelcoat and any painted surface.

One big project that we had been delaying was the removal and the painting of the mast, boom and spinnaker pole.   It feels like an infrastructure home project, like replacing old plumbing in your house. If it all goes well,  you still have water coming out of the tap in the end.  And after a whole lot of work, it is still functionally the same.

The rig was 18 years old so this was also a good opportunity to inspect all the welds and mast fittings very closely.  Mexico is a great place to do this type of work.  It will make me feel more confident in the standing rigging for a Pacific crossing in 2017.

Lots of corrosion at the masthead.  18 years in the sun and salt will do this.

I did a lot of prep work, both on the outside as well as the inside to get the mast ready to be pulled.  It was kind of like a tooth extraction  but on a much larger scale. After a few days in the La Cruz Marina, we went over to the boatyard's dock, tied up and followed instruction as the "surgery" began.  An hour and a half later, Shindig was already back in her assigned slip, tied up, and looking kind of odd with a mast.

Tied up at the yard, preparing for pulling the mast

Off with the boom

Peter Vargas is lifted on the crane to make the appropriate attachments

Mast is out and swinging into the yard

Touchdown

Work progressed well at the boatyard.  Daily monitoring, encouragement for the 2-3 guys who worked on Shindig, as well as contributions to their Saturday afternoon end of week celebrations were part of the routine.  Meanwhile in the slip, boat workers washed and waxed Shindig's hull, topsides and stainless steel.  Even the dinghy and paddleboard now look sparklin' new.

Three and a half weeks later, the mast was ready to be stepped.  With almost precision work, Shindig pulled into the boatyard at 830am, the Sea Tek rigging team led by Peter Vargas was waiting to help tie her up, and the crane began its careful work.

Here is a time lapse of the re-stepping of the mast.

Two more days of putting everything back together again, and Shindig was ready to head out.

We are happy to have this project done and behind us.  Peter Vargas and his team were thoughtful and did a great job.
Everything went back together well and we didn't have any extra parts!

Here are some intermediate photos of the painting project.

Paint is chemically stripped 

Then sanded

Detail work with a wire brush at the masthead

First coats of paint on the spinnaker pole and boom

Main furler gearbox and motor detailed and painted

Lots of little bits and pieces painted and drying

New Shindig graphics for the boom

Painted mast is reassembled and standing rigging is going on