Author: Simply Dog Walk

My heartbeat went up, when we finally started to see La Ventana. A place I have visited before, first time in 2004 with a great group of friends and where I had my first kite lesson at Baja Joes in 2009. A place I call my happy place, kinda like Sherman Island close to Stockton by the Delta river. When it was foggy in San Francisco, I would usually pack up my car with tent/food/kite gear and spend the entire weekend at a warm, sunny and windy place, versus in San Francisco, where the wind felt cold. In La Ventana you run into the same crowd. The crowd which makes the whole kitesurfing experience so special. People are COOL! Laid back and helpful. 🙂

La Ventana is not really a place to anchor. But the Captain checked the wind forecast and felt pretty confident that we should be fine with two anchors and not so heavy winds.

The waters are not deep, so we had to anchor a bit further out. We anchored close to Playa Central the first time and stayed for 2 nights

and moved than close to Palapas Ventana; tucked in a bit more to prevent some of the rolling at night.

Spending time with friends and being able to kite was just great. My friends Peter and Bettina surprised me by just walking into Playa Central the first day. There were some long hugs happening. 😀

Billy, a friend of the Captain from Canada, also stopped by to say ‘Hi’ and he offered us his second car. What a great gesture! Our Kruiser took kite surf lessons on two days and rented some Windsurfing gear. Due to his size of 6’8, it felt though, that nobody had appropriate measured equipment. It was fun to watch him try and to almost get on the board after only a short period of time.

Since the anchorage was only safe in lighter winds, we decided to take advantage of the offered van from Billy and his wife and sail to the protected anchorage in Muertos after 4 nights. The men sailed SV Alsager and myself and Mats drove the van to Muertos. In the afternoon we all drove back to La Ventana, for the 60^th Birthday party of my good friend Peter, who celebrated with 70 people at Malin Azul. Great evening with awesome food and nice people! Thank you, Peter and to 60 more!

We ended up having the van for 10 days and were able to also see La Paz, do some stockup/Christmas presents shopping, fill up our propane tank after some trouble actually finding a place who does it, getting laundry done and drive to see our friends in Los Barrilles. Let’s not forget being able to leave all the kite gear in the van and drive to meet up with my friends to go kiting together. Lucky, lucky, lucky! J

I managed to convince the guys, who were long ready to continue the journey, besides staying Christmas to also stay for New Years Eve. I wanted to celebrate into 2018 with people we knew and not be solely on the water. Can’t be blamed for wanting that, right? I am also never ready to leave La Ventana, another valid reason, LOL 😀

The restaurant by the resort at Muertos was always super friendly and accommodating and they had a Christmas tree. On the 24^th I wrapped up the presents and decorated them under the Christmas tree. We watched the magical moment when Mats unwrapped his presents with joy and were able to talk to our families back in Germany and Canada. A wonderful day, even being so far away from them. So great to be able to talk to them!

After Christmas we went to check out the Island Cerralvo, which you can check out HERE  and also visited our friends in Los Barrilles.

We had to return the van that morning and decided to sail back to La Ventana for New Years. It was a nice sail and took about 5 hours.

New Years Eve turned out to be a great party. First we started off at Palapas Ventana, Tim, the owner and his wife had reached out to us and wanted to do a firewerk. Great start of the night and awesome company! Then off to Delaneys, where most of La Ventana got together and grooved upstairs to a life band and enjoyed beats from some cool DJ’s downstairs. I suffered the next day and we postponed our crossing of Sea de Cortez and just went for another night to Island Cerralvo. Kruiser did some more spearfishing and hunted us dinner and we enjoyed the 1^st evenening of the new year at another bonfire at our favourite Cactus. Great times!

We left Los Barilles with the plan to go straight to La Ventana. I was eager to finally get there, as this is a place I have visited 4 times already and I totally dig this kite paradise and people. It is a happy place.

But then we were close to Los Muertos and the Captain decided to break it up and anchor together with Lea Scotia. We set anchor and were about to set up our dinghy, when a sudden wind came up. We managed to get a weak service on our phone and checked the forecast. It was supposed to pick up 20 knots at night and since we already had a bumpy night behind us in Los Barilles, the Captain decided to continue around the corner and anchor close to La Ventana before sunset.

This all happened so sudden and my good friend was almost on the way to come see us in Muertos from El Sargento . Luckily I was able to contact him, before he got into his car. But I have to confess, that sometimes the back and force on a sailing trip can be a bit frustrating, especially when you are looking forward to the place or people and than weather does not play in favor and the Captain had to make a safety decision. Well, I was pissed and the guys on board annoyed about me being a pain.

Oh well, the anchor spot at Punta Arena de La Ventana was really nice with beautiful sunset and we all had a good night and the next day… off to HAPPY PLACE. 🙂

We decided in the morning, that due to the weather it would not make much sense staying in Los Frailes. We hadn’t even set up the dinghy to go to shore the day before and the water did not look promising to have good visibility to go snorkeling either. So we contacted our friends from Lea Scotia, that we are heading towards Muertos, with possible stop in La Ribera. Lea Scotia is that beautiful sailboat you see in the upper and lower picture.

We tried to leave the clouds behind and had some showers now and than. La Ribera has a new Marina where we were hoping to be able to anchor to break down the sail. But with the help of Lea Scotia and there sonar on the dinghy, we had to find out, that it was way too shallow. Some armed police officers were watching us from shore and creeped us out a little bit, but they seemed to just do there watch for the 4 Seasons, which is still being built.

Look at these guys, our friend Kruiser is getting along so well with Mats now, that he even fell asleep on his lap. Well, after doing a lot of “Haya’s” to him…

The water was so calm and not windy, that we decided to try our luck and anchored in front of Los Barilles. We went to shore, Mats played with his buddy Charlie on the beach and we checked out the little town. It is really a cute town and we just decided to stay another night.

The next day wind picked up a little and I got to kite some. Great spot and certainly would like to come back here. 🙂

We left the Marina early morning and soon were able to pull up those sails. The atmosphere was fantastic , everybody was well rested and felt good. We were all excited to be on the water and I am usually not the one saying that. But the water was pretty smooth and the sail comfortable. Our friends from Lea Scotia were on the way to Los Frailes as well and took this great shot from Alsager under sail.

We put a little video clip together for you. We arrived in Los Frailes and had just set the anchor, when we got a little surprise. 🙂

It’s been a journey so far, with lots of new impressions. We have made this clip before our departure and I must say, it ain’t bad where we sailed from. Isn’t it? 🙂

What keeps us going? Us? You? New places? Adventure?

THE UNKNOWN!

 

Have a very happy new year!

Yours

TO SAIL OR NOT TO BE

We left Los Muertos early in the morning and sailed towards the Island across from La Ventana. This was our second try, the day before we had to turn around as we started to have too much head wind, which would have made the not perfect protected anchorage a bit uncomfortable. But this time, it was perfect. We arrived and found a good spot and our Kruiser immediately dug out the spear gun, which he hadn’t used yet. He jumped in the water, while the rest of us cleaned up the boat and got things ready for a later island visit.

Kruiser came back with a very pretty grouper. He prepared it right away and made some yummy seared fish, which we than enjoyed with freshly baked bread. Yupp, I finally got around to use our OMNIA oven and made whole wheat bread. It was YUMMY!

With new strength we set up the dinghy and the family went to shore, while our man Kruiser jumped off the boat to catch some more fish for dinner. We explored the island, Noah was happy to cruise around a bit, we went for a swim and found out, that we weren’t the first visitors.

The Sunset, Pelicans hunting and the bonfire by the big cactus, where we cooked the other two fish Kruiser caught for us, will be in our memories as an unforgettable one! What a great day.

Our families and friends are far away while we are on our adventure sailing trip. Either in Germany, Canada or elsewhere. So, so good to be able to talk to the family from a restaurant of a cute resort, where we took our dinghy this morning. Mats just opened his presents and is happily playing away.

Thanks for reading and following our journey and we hope, you are all having a Merry Christmas/Frohe Weihnachten! 🙂

To Sail or Not To Be

It seems so long ago. Here is a movie clip about our 2nd stop in Monterey, fixing things and other animals…

More about our stop in Monterey you can find under this link or click on Monterey:

https://wordpress.com/post/tosailornottobe.com/1777

The Captain was a little nervous, as we had tried now for so many times and put hours and hours into getting the motor back in shape. There was really not much wrong with it, but once it is loosing it’s prime, and there only needs to be a small leak somewhere which lets air in, it is just a big hassle and everyone hopes, it was the right spot and is now absolutely airtight.

But the motor held up and we motor sailed to San Jose del Cabo and got a nice spot at the Marina, next to our friends from SV Lea Scotia. The first Marina since San Diego! The boat got a well deserved fresh water wash and we enjoyed the warm showers!

The cute little downtown area has a bit more charm than Cabo San Lucas.

Mats has a buddy on SV Lea Scotia, the boat to the left of us and it’s always great when the kids have someone to play with. We have met the family with a almost 3yr old and a 7 months baby in San Diego and we kept contact along the way, until we found another again in Cabo and travelled together for a bit on our Journeys. A great family! 🙂

Our Kruiser came back from Chihuahua the next day and we prepared the boat for the next leg, towards Los Frailes

I know the magazine’s of Latitude 38 quite well, since our Captain picks up a new issue as soon as it’s published. I would then spot them in our live- aboard in Sausalito, on the couch table , in the car, or even bedroom as night time lecture. 🙂

So I am way excited , that “To Sail or Not To Be” was mentioned in there December issue in the Changes Section.

Click here if you are interested to see or just look at the Screenshots below.

🤗

Klick Here to watch Youtube movie “When cruising in Cabo gets ugly”