Last year in the blog we mentioned our encounter with the 16′ Miss Cindy in Bahia de Los Angeles in October 2008. Officially Miss Cindy is a Turtle Island 16′ Microcat cruiser. We had a great evening getting to know her solo captain Tony Bigras and were greatly entertained by his stories. He had trailered Miss Cindy south from Canada to Mexico and launched her into the Sea of Cortez at San Felipe (about 185 miles south of Yuma, Arizona). Raven and Miss Cindy crossed paths near the beginning of Tony’s ambitious voyage.
Tonight I came across Tony’s Miss Cindy website referencing our meeting early in his voyage and going on to chronicle his adventures and 4,000 mile voyage from San Felipe all the way south and east via Nicaragua to Cuba, then Florida, before trailering Miss Cindy back home to Vancouver, B.C., Canada in June 2009!
What an adventure! Fun reading. Way to go, Tony!
So if you’re interested in a different style of cruising, here’s the link.
Here we are in San Carlos – as close to Tucson as Raven will ever get! It even feels like a suburb of Tucson. Half the boats in the marina name Tucson as their home port. This weekend the Tucson Sailing Club is hosting a regatta. We even bought an Arizona Daily Star in the coffee shop!
I’ve been remiss in the travelogue department, but we are still afloat and enjoying ourselves. We’ve covered a lot of territory since last communication – as of day before yesterday we hit the most northern point of our cruise and are now headed downhill much to Rod’s approval. Only 7,000 miles to go (to New Zealand), downwind all the way!
We’ve been leading our usual idyllic lifestyle on Raven – always more of the same, but always new and different as well. Up ’til now we have been retracing our past route, but as the prevailing wind is from a different direction than last cruise, we are able to overnight in new anchorages that weren’t suitable prior. We did repeat one of our favorite anchorages at Puerto El Gato, a very scenic spot fondly remembered from last voyage for our lobster dinner. This time the local lobsterman only found one lobster for us (late notice) and was very apologetic, but we shared and it was delicious anyway – plus much cheaper ($50 pesos and a six-pack of cerveza) than “market price” at a good restaurant!
Last night’s anchorage was off Isla San Francisco, in a bay called “The Hook”. On our previous trip we had to bypass this particular spot as the wind was coming out of the wrong direction making the anchorage unsafe, but conditions were in our favor this time around. The south end of the island terminates in a long curving white sand beach ending in a mountain peak – appearing exactly like a giant fish hook. The water was calm, clear and turquoise – just like a giant swimming pool! Mike and I hiked along the mountain ridge that stretches along the east shoreline the length of the island. That side of the island was rugged and rocky, with very volcanic looking rock formations, bizarre colors including mauve and green, plunging cliffs meeting a dark blue sea rough with surf and a beach of multi-colored stones some 10-12″ in diameter. All in all completely different from our safe haven on the opposite side of the island, even though the two coastlines are only separated by less than a mile of terrain.
We’re safe and sound in Mexico – flew in yesterday to Cabo San Lucas – Rod met us in a rental car and we drove 2 1/2 hours to La Paz, stopping for lunch in Todos Santos at the Hotel California (but not THE Hotel California). Couldn’t find any decent flights direct to La Paz – off-season I guess. We had 4 suitcases and 2 big boxes – it cost a fortune in extra bag fees and duty coming into Mexico, but we had to bring parts for Raven to make the passage to French Polynesia in February. Six 12 volt fans, three water pumps, 38 water filters, a new kayak, some new dive gear, and all our rolls and rolls of South Pacific charts that we had taken off the boat when we arrived in San Diego last year.
