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!!