I thought I’d jot down a few notes about life aboard for
those who are wondering about the day-to-day routine of cruising in
Mexico. While we have been doing a
fair amount of traveling, most cruisers spend more time in port than actually
underway…and so here are a few comments on the life that is not under sail.
We returned to La Paz a week ago, and chose to anchor out –
being in a marina is convenient, but there is little privacy since you are
right next to other boats and people feel free to stop by as they walk down the
dock. In addition, the wind can’t
blow through the boat when it is tied to a dock, and the air can get pretty
stuffy when the outside air temp reaches as high as 90F (as it has been
lately). However, at anchor the boat generally turns with the bow toward the
wind, allowing fresh air to be scooped into the hatches.
(At least, NORMALLY we swing with the wind and the tide, but
in La Paz those are not always from the same direction, since the incoming tide
sweeps along the length of Bahia La Paz from the south as the wind comes from
the north. The photo below shows
how wind, current and hull shape interact to keep one boat oriented to the wind
and the other to the current….a sight that you don’t see often in an anchorage
as breezy as La Paz.)
Some people don’t like to anchor because the boat moves more
and you have to pay attention, checking to be sure your anchor is not dragging,
or (more likely) that other people are not dragging down on YOU. But if you have good anchoring gear and
deploy it well, you should be able to sleep well at night…and I like the
rocking motion of a boat at anchor.
Anchoring out also means that trips ashore involve a dinghy
ride. Most cruisers here have
inflatable dinghies with oars and outboards. Outboards are a highly coveted item in Mexico, and it’s
imperative to lock the outboard onto the dinghy and lift the dinghy from the
water if you have an outboard on it.
Otherwise, you’re likely to wake up in the morning to find the dinghy
stolen, and, if you are lucky, to find it drifting somewhere minus the
outboard.
Fortunately, Kim and I both prefer rowing to the noise and
smell of an outboard, and so we have only once put the outboard onto the dinghy
in the last two months. Pumping up
the dinghy is a regular ritual once we reach harbor, and provides more exercise
for those quads, so we take turns on the foot pump. Rowing is great aerobic exercise as well, so we keep very
careful tabs of who GETS to row each time.
Each dinghy trip provides an opportunity to bring water back
to the boat from the marina dock, and we generally refill the 5-gallon jug at
least once or twice a day – that’s more than enough to keep the water tanks
topped up, even with showers and dishwashing. Unless we are in a bay with lots of other boats, we wash the
dishes in salt water and save the fresh water for rinsing. Since we have no laundry facilities on
board, it’s easiest just to bring it to a lavanderia every 5-6 days, where they will wash, dry and fold a
load of clothes for $50 MX (about $4 US).
With this weather, we’re typically in shorts and T-shirts, so the
laundry bag never gets too heavy – I haven’t worn jeans at all in Mexico.
Kim has a couple of bicycles and La Paz is a wonderful city
for biking, with wide streets and few hills. With a plastic milk basket strapped to the back, we don’t
need a taxi to provision the boat or visit a bunch of hardware stores looking
for the odd nut or bolt. Another
great way to get some exercise and see the side of the city that is not
experienced by cruisers who stay at the dock
Of course, the best place to provision is right out of the
sea and the Sea of Cortes is fabulous for fishing. On the way into La Paz, for instance, we put a hand line
over board and it took us 15 minutes to hook a fish – although that one got
away as I began hauling in the line, the next one was not so lucky and the 18”
Sierra was turned into sushi in less time that it took us to catch him.
Needless to say, living on a boat involves the occasional
repair job, validating the saying that “cruising is just working on your boat
in exotic locations.” There is
always a list of “boat projects,{ and while we were in La Paz we took the
opportunity to trouble-shoot the Single Sideband Radio as well as install some
new speakers for the stereo.
Single side bands are a valuable addition to the VHF radio,
allowing cruisers in foreign countries to get weather faxes and weather
forecasts, and to communicate with people back home through ham networks. Accessing grounds and wires often
involves climbing into tight spaces, and moving the ‘stuff’ into a different
tight space for examination or repair.
We still haven’t diagnosed the problem, but we have reason to believe we
may have too little ‘ground plane.’
Hope you enjoy the pictures!
