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Boat work in Taiohae Bay As usual, our planned one-week stay in Taiohae turned into three. We didn’t spend the time slacking, though; there was far too much to do for any of that. Besides, we needed to kickstart our bodies into mobility after loafing around for almost...

Close, but miles apart Rather than go through the rigmarole of taking off the outboard, we lifted the dinghy complete with outboard onto the side of the boat and headed the few miles across Banderas Bay to the anchorage at La Cruz. There, we picked up Aloha's AIS...

Chacala Our pilot book suggested Chacala would be a fun place to stop, so that’s where we headed the next day. It didn’t look like fun when we got there, judging by how the three boats already there were bouncing around. But this was the best out of the two places we...

There'll be crocodiles in these parts We arrived at the expansive bay of Matanchen a few hours after leaving Isla Isabel and her boobies. Palapas pepper the coastline here, stretching over hundreds of metres on the north shore. So, there's no shortage of places to...

Don't believe the anti-hype If we had taken some comments posted about Isla Isabel at face value, we wouldn't have turned up. According to some, the anchorages here are more Rock'n Roll than the '60s, and the sea bed has a voracious appetite for anchors. "Once the...

Joyful arrival Sorry, but there is so much one can do with that name. Maria's sister, Joy, arrived on 23rd January after a journey that made a pilgrimage seem like a stroll to the local shops. It took three flights and 12 hours of layovers from Manchester to Mazatlan....

Mazatlan 2022 Our main activity from 1st Jan until our road trip to the Copper Canyons on the 6th was preparing to leave Jamala for a week. That meant washing the outside, cleaning the inside, and flushing the toilets with fresh water to avoid pipes smelling like...

We'll take that as a victory Sailing to Mazatlan under clear moonlit skies with the wind behind us and the crew only lightly seasick is regarded as a good couple of days at the Jamala office. We sailed almost from San Francisco to Mazatlan. Only as the wind dropped...

Buenas Tardes and Bienvenida a La Paz Good afternoon and welcome to La Paz. I think that’s what the harbour master said in reply to me announcing our arrival at the anchorage at La Paz. Thanks to our pioneering friends Liz and Steve on Aloha, Maria and I were...

Fan belts and Banshees That took twice the effort it should have. Our first attempt to get to Los Frailes was scuppered by a broken fan belt 4 hours into our trip. Thanks to an alarm screeching like a banshee in our earholes, we found the problem quickly enough. But,...

Winners Winners Chicken Dinners Who'd have thought it, eh? We won first prize in our class in the Baja Haha rally, despite being a week late and having motored more time than we had sailed. In a typical sailing regatta, we would have been thrown out of the competition...

Plan for another plan if the first plan doesn't pan out Here's what we read on Active Captain before deciding to head to Port San Luis: "This is wonderful anchorage..." "We spent a week here relaxing..." "... definitely a welcome harbour in very windy...

What rhymes with tanker?  Someone needs to go back to commercial vessel driving school. As we passed underneath the Bay Bridge, a cargo ship, whose AIS vector showed that he was passing to our stern, decided he wasn't going to pass behind us anymore. He changed course...

What do you do with a month in Alameda? Install Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries, that's what. It took a long time to plan, but they are in, and the old lead-acid batteries are out. The previous Trojan batteries may have a good reputation, but we never liked them. It...

It could have been worse "There is no hurricane coming, but it will be very windy in Spain." I think Michael Fish, the weatherman, said on television before the October 1987 storm.  The forecast models predicted maximum wind speeds of 22 knots approaching Cape...