I realized this while making lattes this morning. It’s our second day of hunkering down in Ensenada Grande while the fierce northerly winds buffet the other side of the island. We haven’t been ashore in two days and talk about the idea of putting the outboard on the dinghy today and venturing to the beach.

It’s 11 am and I am tidying up our oatmeal breakfast dishes, which consists of piling them into the sink to wash sometime later in the day. “A latte sounds really nice today,” Michael mentions from where he sits on the settee, watching the girls color and draw at the table. It’s sunny and warm, not a cloud in the sky, and I’m still feeling awake from our first cup of joe hours ago. “Yeah, that does sound good,” I reply and start getting out our coffee paraphernalia: our Aeropress and filters, the coffee beans, the grinder, the soy milk, the chocolate soy milk, my vanilla syrup, the frother, our latte cups. I set a kettle of water on the stove to heat.

Meanwhile both girls take note of the action in the galley and pop their heads up above the sink. “Chocolate milk! Chocolate milk!” they chant in unison. “How about some Mexican hot chocolate?” I ask. “Yeah!” they declare with glee.

I get out another pan and measure two cups of milk into it, light the burner, then drop the Mexican hot chocolate tablets in to melt. Meanwhile, I pour some chocolate milk into the frother for Michael’s mocha, set it to heat, then grind the beans.

An hour later, I am sitting in the cockpit with my hot vanilla latte and a book. People are now clamoring below for a snack. “Twenty minutes!” I tell them. “I’m going to enjoy my coffee now!” For the next 45 minutes I sit with my feet up in the sun letting Michael handle the deluge of requests down below from the girls while I read a chapter in my book and sip my frothy hot drink.

When I am done I get up and stretch and go back inside to get started on lunch which we’ll need to power us for an afternoon of digging holes on the beach, writing practice in the sand, searching for shells, climbing on rocks, and watching fish dart through the shallows. We have a full day ahead.

The next morning the southerly winds were still blowing so we were up early to take advantage of them, hoping to reach Isla San Francisco 25 miles north. As we expected, the breeze gradually petered out as we sailed up Espiritu Santo/Partida. We took down our spinnaker and motored for about 10 minutes. Suddenly the northerly we’d hoped would wait until later in the day to arrive, arrived. It didn’t just gradually build as winds typically do. Nope. One minute our Windex was spinning around with no wind whatsoever to guide it, and the next a steady 15 knots was blowing down on us from the north.

Five minutes later we had 25 knots, with gusts to 30. Michael and I looked at each other after watching the building windwaves for a minute or two. “Turn?” “Yep.” We steered the boat to port and high-tailed it back to Ensenada Grande to wait for the winds to die down over the next several days. With only our staysail up, we were making six knots directly for our coveted anchorage. Not an hour after the northerly started we already had 4-6 foot wind waves pushing us around. The Sea of Cortez is intense indeed.

Ensenada Grande is hardly a terrible place to be stuck in. We are surrounded by turquoise water and huge pink cliffs of volcanic rock sculpted by wind and waves backed against a sky that seems impossibly blue. There is a white sand beach which we had to ourselves to play on today and criss-cross trails that meandered inland a bit through desert scrub and cactus.

Back on the boat, the girls busied themselves with their workbooks and Magic Tree House audiobooks and Michael and I busied ourselves with our Lists. Our mission right now is to just relax and simply enjoy the next few weeks of slow exploration in the Sea, as once again a deadline is looming. By March 15th we’ll start our nearly month-long sail across the Pacific Ocean to the Marquesas Islands, our first stop on our South Pacific Adventure.

But rather than the dread that many a deadline evokes, when we get out our lists of things to do in the next seven weeks we feel butterflies. We are nothing but excited at the journey ahead. We look ahead in our South Pacific guidebooks daily, and realize that we are not dreaming anymore, but planning. All we really need to do is relish the beauty of Baja Mexico, pack some food and supplies onboard, and go.

When the wind picked up yesterday and we were barreling along with just our tiny staysail up, the sea a froth of whitecaps and spray I looked around at the beauty of it all and realized I wasn’t nervous a bit. I watched Michael as he calmly adjusted our course so our leeway wouldn’t send us south of our destination. I peeked down the forward hatch and checked on the girls who were in our bunk looking at books, oblivious to the howling wind outside. The anxiety I’d felt each time the wind built six months ago was gone. In it’s place is a calm confidence that Wondertime can handle this and much more with grace. And now after sailing several thousand miles together, I see that so can we.

Until now, we’ve been busy in La Paz this past week getting our chores done so we can head back out again which is exactly what we’re doing in the morning. So we can get back to this:

S/V Wondertime’s December 2011 Cruising Expenses

boat bits – $135
books/magazines – $16
bus/taxi – $49
cat care – $76
cell phone – $29
clothing – $135
diesel – $222
dinghy gas – $34
dive/snorkle gear – $329
eating out – $387
galley – $9
gifts – $239
groceries – $605
internet – $36
carousel ride – $2
laundry – $35
moorage – $146
movie tickets – $21
mp3 album – $9
personal care – $36
supplies – $85
toys – $4

total: $2,639

I sit in the cockpit underneath the dodger so as to avoid the quickly settling dew, and the noise of the engine, Deb Talen singing in my ears. Suddenly, I am surrounded by them, the ghosts I mistakenly thought I could leave behind when we left to go sailing last year. Here, completely alone a hundred miles from land they loom larger than ever: relationships that are unmendable, phone calls I can’t seem to make, people I’m losing touch with, the eternal absence of my mother.

Part of heading off to sea was to leave these things behind for a while, thinking the farther away from the location they first appeared the dimmer they will become. But that’s the funny thing about the sea: things you want to leave behind don’t fade in the distance, they get magnified and on a night when you are alone with nothing but the moon and a mirrored ocean, they are smothering.

I close my eyes and try to wish them away again, but that’s when the largest ghost of all creeps into the cockpit and sits down right next to me. Doubt. I was tucking Leah into bed last night and she told me, “Mom, I hate dawn watches,” referring to a book we’ve been reading her since she was a toddler about a girl helping her dad on his watch during an overnight passage. “I don’t like rolling around in my bed and the loud noises.” I tried to console her, saying we only had one more night until we reach La Paz, and then no more dawn watches for a couple more months.

But my daughter’s unhappiness haunts me. I know she still misses her friends back in Olympia, her grandpa and his new wife, her uncles. She misses snow and even rain. She is confused by the seemingly random way we say hello and goodbye to the new friends we are making in this nomadic life. I can relate, I miss all this too.

Michael and I have talked about whether this life is right for our children, to be constantly on the move without a real sense of home except for our small boat. Cruising is so full of highs and lows, amazing places and experiences. But these come at a cost that is sometimes very dear.

Then again, this will all be over before we know it. We’ll be at work and school again wistfully reviewing our memories and photos of the amazing years we spent on the sea. And be dreaming of leaving again. But still, some nights the doubt looms largest and it sounds so delicious to just stop, to settle in another cottage in the woods and spend the winter in front of a warm wood stove, safe and content. People that say, myself included, that the most difficult part of cruising is tossing off the dock lines forget that the hardest part is really keeping on.

When we lived ashore, we bought this used green overstuffed corduroy couch from Craigslist. We loved that couch; it was already well worn in when it came to live with us, so soft. A huge L shape, so it could hold everyone with their legs stretched out even. Sometimes, Michael and I will reminisce about sitting there again: warm, dry, still. But it was on that couch that this whole plan was hatched; we rented Michael Palin’s old BBC travel shows one winter, when Holly was just a newborn. We watched them sitting on that couch and a fire was lit. We realized our tucked-away dream of sailing again was what we really wanted, not the security of our small quiet home. We wanted adventure, to leave it all behind and sail the world with our small children. I’m sure you can see the irony too, of craving that couch while on the deck of our sailing boat.

So here I am, at sea, having adventures. So very far from any sense of home, so much more riding along in this boat with us than I ever thought there was room for.

Blue-footed Booby Birds (photo by Leah)

After nearly five weeks in Banderas Bay we’ve been craving some island time. Badly. So we pointed our bow north to one of our very favorite islands of all time, Isla Isabel, which lies about 18 miles west of the mainland coast, 90 miles or so south of Mazatlan. The weather forecast was perfect for a visit (10  knots or less of wind) since the anchorages are completely exposed and the bottom so rocky that the anchor’s grip on it is tenuous at best. We dropped our Rocna just south of the Los Monas rock sculptures on the east side of the island and it seemed to hold on the edge of a steep shelf that drops back into the sea.

Isla Isabel is home to millions of nesting birds, mainly blue-footed boobies and frigatebirds. Other than visiting yacht crews, the occasional motivated traveller, a handful of fishermen and research students, the island is relatively free from human intervention. As the birds have no predators on the island they are comfortable to nest literally anywhere and everywhere on the 2-mile square ex-volcano.

Leah, being a lover of both birds and wild islands, was enamored with the place. “I call this ‘Bird Island’!” she declared soon after setting off down the trail. She does not exaggerate: you literally have to watch your step at all times as you tiptoe amongst literally thousands and thousands of booby birds nesting right on the ground. It’s hard not to get too close and sometimes they are frightened off, squawking and waddling, leaving their two dusty blue eggs alone in their nests of dirt until they return a few minutes later, the coast clear.

Then you walk down paths through low shrubby trees that are finally clear of whistling boobies. Until you hear the cackling overhead that is the frigatebirds. You peer through the leaves and there they are, right above, in nests precariously balanced in the branches just a few feet over your head. The males have enormous red throat pouches that they inflate to impress a female; if she likes what she sees she caresses it deeply with her beak, and then her whole head. Suddenly you feel like a voyeur and continue walking, being careful now to not step on the large green iguanas that are lying in the grass in the sun.

It is the wild places we tiptoe through like Isla Isabel, places still owned by nature, that we observe with grateful eyes and we’ll always remember and hope our girls do too. I’m pretty sure Bird Island won’t be forgotten.

We have grown and evolved in so many ways and recognize those things we still need to work on too. Obviously, we have become better sailors having come all this way. We’ve learned to live together, gratefully, in these close quarters day after day and come to enjoy it. Most days. We’ve learned to make friends quickly as you never know how much time you’ll have together. We’re learning to live in the Now as we know that before we realize it we’ll be looking at the past longingly with the tough moments nearly forgotten with time. Some days are better than others of course and our patience, compassion, and calm – while better than ever – sometimes fails. But we always get another chance to do better.

When we arrived in Banderas Bay a month ago we thoroughly enjoyed just being still for awhile. It didn’t take long, however before we started asking ourselves what we really want out of our time in Mexico. What next? This being our second trip here together via sailboat we’re finding ourselves drawn to the new, to places we didn’t make it to our last time down.

We’re also finding that, despite our vision for so many years, just playing on the warm beach, shooting the breeze with other cruisers and drinking cervezas isn’t quite enough. While we have absolutely loved enjoying the wonderful culture, food and people of Mexico, we have found ourselves craving something more, something more challenging and entirely new. Before leaving Washington we told a few people that our ultimate goal is to make it to New Zealand where we hope to work for a few years. Gradually, what was once a dream of sailing the South Pacific had become a goal and now, our plan for 2012.

Today, on our half-year cruising anniversary we finally left Banderas Bay and the delightfully friendly town of La Cruz and headed north to the lovely port of Chacala. While it is beautiful here with a brown sugar beach and towering palm trees, it’s also the week between Christmas and New Years and the shoreline is absolutely thronging with tourists. Since the northerlies aren’t expected to pick up again until next week, we’ll head north again tomorrow, bound for Isla Isabel (think “mini-Galapagos”), one of our favorite places of all time. The only tourists there should be us.

Since we only have another three months or so in Mexico we have thought long and hard about how to make the most of our time here. Being kind of in the middle of the country, we really only have two options: sail south to the beaches and wonderfully lazy seaside villas of Chamela, Tenacatita, Barra de Navidad. Or, sail north into the Sea of Cortez where the heart-achingly beautiful desert sea has always been calling us back. But it’s winter up there, and cold, and windy. And deserted this time of year except for the whales.

Perfect.

So, we’ve stayed here in La Cruz so the girls can savor some major kid-time. Which gives their parents time to mingle with other sailing parents and chat about the challenges and thrills of cruising with little people. And, ahem, enjoy a cold happy hour margarita while our young crews play tag in the grass. We’ve known that cruisers are a tight bunch and friendships form quickly, especially in a foreign place. But we’ve also found here that cruising parents are attracted to each other just as quickly as our kids are. Maybe it’s because we all know how to eat quickly and understand each others stories even though it’s only every fourth sentence that gets finished.

While Holly is the youngest of the bunch she doesn’t mind tagging along with her big sister one bit. Leah currently has two other girlfriends with birthdays within weeks of hers and is in heaven. We’ve recognized the importance of just staying still for a while and letting Leah nuture her friendships. For nearly five months it felt like we were constantly on the move and it’s been nice to stop here for a bit and nurture our own as well. And to finally have time to simply let the kids run with their friends and just be kids, with games of tag, sleepovers, playing in the water. It’s like a Christmas summer camp here and it’s marvelous.

The La Cruz Kids Club (yes, it's really an official club!) holds a bake/book/smoothie sale at the cruiser's swap meet

Leah and Frances hold a swap meet of their own out of dock box treasures

Time for a little preschool, kindergarten and second grade in the (air conditioned!) La Cruz marina lounge

The sailing kids of La Cruz decorated a tree for the marina lounge

La Cruz Kids Club heads to the grass to play "What time is it, Mr. Fox?"

Looking back on all that needed to fall into place to get us where we are today — swinging in the hammock at anchor in our underwear in Banderas Bay 10 days before Christmas — we are continually amazed at all the serendipitous events that have occurred along the way. Even now as we approach our 6-month cruising anniversary we have been blown away at the good luck? divine intervention? that is keeping us going. When our windlass decided to throw in the towel 300 miles south of San Diego we started scanning the horizon for luck as we sure didn’t have any idea what else to do.

Wondertime came equipped with a manual Simpson Lawrence Seatiger 555 windlass. (For the non-boaties: this is basically a big winch that lives on the bow whose job is to hoist up hundreds of feet of our anchor chain and our 55 lb. anchor when it’s time to move on. “Manual” means it uses arm power, not electricity, to get the job done.) These units are legendary for being bulletproof and trustworthy and offer up a nice upper body workout to boot.

We had the same simple windlass on our previous boat, Pelican; we always were happy with the unit as it never let us down and were glad that Wondertime came equipped with the same model. Over the past months of putting our current windlass into full time use, however, it became clear that either we weren’t as strong as we were in our 20s (probably true) or our trusty winch was getting crankier and crankier. It continually has become more and more difficult to hoist up the anchor chain. Michael would fill the unit with fresh grease and it would improve for a bit but the windlass has continually been getting stiffer and even starting to jam if cranked too quickly.

In San Diego we put “replace or repair windlass” at the top of the list. It’s true we did search online and phone a variety of used marine gear stores for a replacement Seatiger but came up empty-handed. These units are now out of production, however we could buy a new one from a fellow in Scotland who used to work for Simpson-Lawrence and keeps a stock of spares and occasionally has an entire new 555 for sale — for about $3200 shipped. With this price in mind we started looking at installing a new electric (hurrah!) windlass but since our Seatiger fits perfectly on top of our bowsprit we’d have to do quite a bit of engineering to fit a different model of windlass.

With all this taken into consideration we made the — rather silly in hindsight — decision to do…nothing. At the time it made perfect sense: since we couldn’t fix it now we’d fix it later. Really though, we just hoped it would crank the chain up a few more times until we could get somewhere in Mexico where we could take the unit apart and have it rebuilt, the most economical solution.

It really is more fun to work on your boat in exotic places, even if a West Marine is nowhere nearby

In Turtle Bay, however, it was agonizingly slow as the windlass jammed again and again when we hoisted our chain the day we needed to move to the south side of the bay in anticipation of a southerly blow coming through the bay the next day. Clearly, it wouldn’t be prudent to put the project off any longer; if we needed to leave an anchorage quickly, say strong winds blowing through in the middle of the night as often happens off Baja, we would have to pull the chain in by hand or possibly be forced to drop our anchoring gear if conditions were bad enough.

It was largely for this reason that we sailed directly from Bahia Magdalena to Banderas Bay, which contains a plethora of services for cruisers and where we hoped to get our windlass rebuilt. We pulled into the marina in La Cruz near our friends on Del Viento and after the girls ran off to play we mentioned to Del Viento Michael that our first job here was to fix or replace our windlass (now feeling more than a little depressed that we’d not taken the job more seriously in San Diego). He told us: “Hey, I think there was a guy selling that same model at the swap meet last weekend. I almost bought it — he was only asking $150 — it seemed to work perfectly!”

Our spirits buoyed, Wondertime Michael borrowed their dinghy to zip out to the anchorage where the seller was moored to see if he still had the windlass, but he wasn’t home at the time. The next morning we got on the 8:30 am cruiser’s VHF net and asked about the windlass and if it was still available to which another cruiser replied “Sorry, but I bought it!”

Dammit.

Our new-to-us Seatiger 555 is installed and we are anchored out again. (Why do we have toothpick-encrusted swim noodles strapped to our bow? Because pelican poop is really hard to scrub off the bowsprit and pelicans hate toothpicks in their feet!)

So we were quickly on to Plan B. After a few days at the dock we figured that we may as well go out and anchor, drop the chain with the windlass and then take it off to start the process of rebuilding it. We found a nice spot on the outer edge of the anchorage, set the hook well and then Michael got busy taking off the old Seatiger. He’d just got it removed when suddenly there was another boat right next to us. Turns out we’d anchored next to someone on 300′ of rode who had a WIDE swinging circle and we’d need to re-anchor.

This time, Michael did pull up the chain by hand and we promptly motored back to the dock as he swore he’d never do that again.

We pulled into a slip on dock 4 (the lower rent district, the marina office had informed us as we’d left dock 9 earlier in the day). Some nearby cruisers came over to help us with our lines.

“Oh boy!” one of the chaps said when he saw the mess on our bow. “You really do need that windlass more than I do!”

Turns out he was the one who’d bought the used Seatiger at the previous week’s swapmeet with plans to rebuild it one day. And he kindly sold it to us for the same price he paid. We were floored to say the least.

Our new-old Seatiger 555 is now securely mounted atop our bow and is as smooth as can be and hoists our chain and anchor up in no time. Another stroke of serendipity — not to mention the outrageous kindness of fellow sailors — and we’re ready to go again.