Intro to Mazatlan.
We've been in Mazatlan almost a week now and we've got a good portion
of it figured out. Matt and I have received some good tours and advice
from Les, Tammy, and Dakota of Epifania. They've been here about a month
and have extensive knowledge of the town.
One day we went with Epifania and Serenity to the market in Old
Mazatlan and ate at the little taco kiosks on the sidewalk. There are a
few of them all on one side of the street. Each has 1-2 women working
behind a counter in an area about six feet deep and ten wide that also
contains all their food, drinks, and appliances. There's generally no
seating to speak of and you have to crowd in to the counter with the
rest of the patrons to get out of the way of people not using the
sidewalk for lunch. These places adhere very closely to the path to taco
enlightenment and the result is phenomenal. In addition to tacos, they
provide salsa, guacamole, and all the fresh cucumber slices and roasted
jalapenos you could ask for.
After lunch we headed through Historic Mazatlan to the waterfront. We
walked along the water to the cliff-diving area. There're a couple of
guys here that collect money and once they have enough, will jump off a
big rock into the ocean. Being a group of frugally minded cruisers, we
hung around until a tour bus of gringos showed up to pony up the cash.
We estimated the cliff at around 70 feet. There's actually a sketchy
little stairway we took up to the place they jump from. There was a good
10-12knts of wind up there. The guys had to time there dives to land in
an incoming wave and still landed surprisingly close to the rocks. I'm
not sure how much the guy collected but it sure as hell wasn't enough to
get me to jump from up there. As karmic punishment for not chipping in
for the show, Matt's camera battery died seconds before the diver
jumped.
Another day Epifania took us to Playa Bruja, a great little surf spot
about four miles north of the marina, accessible by a five-peso bus
ride. We rented a surfboard there and Matt went out made it look easy by
standing up on his first wave. The waves were small 3-4ft and the water
was only about chest deep where they broke so I decided to wade out with
the surfboard and let waves crash on my face for a while before getting
on the board. I never actually stood with both feet on the board but I
did catch a few waves and that was enough to get me hooked. We'll be
looking for a surfboard or two to add to our travels.
You may notice that Jeff is absent from this update. His girlfriend
Christina is in down visiting and somehow more compelling to hang out
with than Matt and I.
Los Frailes to Mazatlan
Made it to Mazatlan today, roughly three days after leaving Los
Frailes. Our entire time in Los Frailes the wind blew out of the north,
preventing a comfortable passage to La Paz. A few hours into our passage
and we were making great time on a beam reach toward Mazatlan when that
same north wind died.
The rest of the passage was relatively uneventful. We saw a few pods
of dolphins, still hasn't gotten old for me. These dolphins were larger
than we had seen before and brownish colored. I won't bore everyone with
the genius and species. Even though I totally could. Seriously. We also
saw some larger jumping rays. Even though we saw lots of sea life, we
didn't catch a single fish. This was unfortunate since our pantry was
down to canned chili and mac and cheese.
Arriving at Marina Mazatlan was amazingly easy. We were approaching
Mazatlan in the morning and tuned in to the 8am cruiser net so we were
up to date on some of the latest news. When we got to the actual marina
an army of security guard/dock hands flagged us into a slip and handled
our lines for us. The marina office took care of all our paperwork for
us and provided us with the password to the wireless network, a map of
Mazatlan, and details on all the other marina services. Then we dropped
off our laundry to be washed. We were all dangerously low on clothes
since the last time we did laundry was in Ensenada.
After dropping off our dirty undies, Jeff took a nap (he had the
morning watch) while Matt and I caught the bus into town in search of
tacos. We rode the bus into Old Mazatlan where we somehow succeeded in
finding the worst Mexican food I have ever had anywhere. I should have
seen all the signs: Our waiter hollered an invitation at us like a
carnival barker, the only other patrons were a couple of gringos, and
the food was prepared in a kitchen in the back. If I've learned anything
here so far it's that the best tacos come from small places with a
couple of people that run everything. You have to get their attention to
get anything, they rarely speak any English, you can see them preparing
your food, and you hardly ever see other gringos there. These places may
scare the average weak-bowelled tourist but I never claimed the path to
taco enlightenment would be easy. Today I strayed from the path and was
duly punished. Stay tuned, more from Mazatlan to come.
More pictures.
More pictures have been added to the gallery. The gallery defaults to
"Los Frailes - Mexico", but sort the pictures by "Mexico" to get the
additions from Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas. There are even two new
movies of just quiet sailing in the
media directory.
Oh, and you can now also email us at casey@svsohcahtoa.com, jeff@svsohcahtoa.com, and matt@svsohcahtoa.com
Los Frailes
Okay, I've recovered from my cold and my view of Los Frailes has
improved greatly. Los Frailes is essentially an anchorage, RV park, and
fishing village. There is a small 8-unit hotel each of which supposedly
goes for nearly $300/night. Also, there are a couple dozen nice new
houses. Almost every house has a nice pickup in the driveway with plates
from somewhere in the States or Canada.
You may notice that this entry is from nearly a week after leaving
Cabo when the original plan was to stay one night here before heading to
La Paz. Unfortunately, the wind wasn't aware of our plan and continued
to blow hard out of the North and the anchorage began to fill up with
boats that had similar plans. Our provisioning was also part of this
plan. Luckily there are trucks that come every couple days with fresh
produce, homemade tamales, milk, eggs, and some of the other essentials.
Still, our meals were becoming increasingly simple.
A visit to the single little restaurant really changed my view of Los
Frailes. It's just an open-air palapa (conical thatched roof) building
with one guy, Pedro, running it. There's no menu. You just tell Pedro
what you want and he cooks it. The best part is that they have ice-cold
beer. It was dark when we finished dinner and we hadn't brought a
flashlight. Pedro offered us a ride back to the beach saying that
without a flashlight we'd have a good chance of getting bitten by one of
the snakes or scorpions that gather on the road in the evening to
capture the last of the heat. So, he grabbed four beers and we piled
into his boss's beat up old rancher's Dodge pickup and headed back to
the beach. We had not provisioned or got ice for our coolers since
Ensenada and we were nearly a week out of Cabo so a meal with fresh meat
and cold beer was a godsend.
I'm writing on an empty stomach so I may be focusing too much on the
food. There's also some great snorkeling in Los Frailes. Well, I may not
be the best judge though since it was my first time snorkeling in salt
water. Still, there were a ton of tropical fish of varying sizes and
colors and there was a huge area that was only about 15 feet deep with
good visibility. Also, there's good diving further out and Jim, Eve, and
Matt got some good pictures from hiking the large hill that protects the
anchorage.
One of our last nights here we went over for cocktails with Terry on
the Southwind III. We'd seen him and his crewmate John on the beach
earlier in the day, agreed to have cocktails that night, and only later
realized that all we had was a warm half-rack of Modelo beer and a
bottle of tequila with nothing to mix it with. Never the kind to back
down from adversity, we brought what we had to the Southwind III. Jim
and Eva from Serenity also joined us. Eva made cookies and they were a
surprisingly good compliment to our glasses of warm tequila. As the
night progressed, Terry entertained us with stories of his interesting
life and fed us copious amount of popcorn. Actually, Jeff was making
most of the popcorn but Terry gave him the green light to access the
popcorn stash. Night changed to morning and Terry's stories turned to
ramblings punctuated by reminding everyone of his 180 IQ. Terry is
Canadian though, which makes it like 125US. Meanwhile, Jim and Eva sat
in awe, having never seen the crew of the Sohcahtoa in a dipsomaniacal
episode. All in all, it was an excellent night of booze and BS.
The wind is finally abating but we have to meet Jeff's girlfriend,
Christina, in Mazatlan soon so, we've given up heading to La Paz. Once
again, it's nice to have a flexible itinerary and be able to change
plans.
Cabo to Los Frailes
We arrived in Los Frailes today after an uncomfortable upwind
passage. It was a good reminder of why a gentleman never sails to
windward. It took us nearly twice as long as expected to travel the 50
miles from Cabo. We had some good sailing for a little while then the
wind picked up to 20-25kts on the nose with steep waves that were close
together and beat the hell out of us.
It didn't help that I had caught a cold in Cabo and was feeling like
crap. Alliteration aside, I was thoroughly unimpressed Los Frailes. The
landscape bears a striking resemblance to the sagebrush and rattlesnake
infested areas of the Okanogan Valley.
Cabo San Lucas.
Get me out of this place! We've been in Cabo six days and we're
finally leaving. Cabo really isn't a great location for cruisers. The
marina is too rich for our blood, the anchorage is rocky (as in lots of
waves), and there isn't a convenient place to provision. Also, we found
that the restaurants aren't nearly as good it as in Ensenada and they're
more expensive.
We did have some good times in here though. The water and weather is
warm so we set up our halyard rope swing and had some fun on the boat.
We had a couple of cocktail parties on our boat and went to some on
other boats. For those non-boaters out there, the cockpit cocktail party
with drinks and hors d'oeuvres is an essential part of boating, more so
when in a new place where you can share local knowledge. Jeff excels at
throwing these shindigs, combining his zeal for throwing parties with a
lifetime of boating. I, on the other hand, excel at attending said
parties, due undoubtedly to my zeal for eating and boozing. Either way,
they allowed us to get to know several people that we'd seen in San
Diego and Ensenada.
The highlight of Cabo for me was going fishing with Nick from the
Eshamy. After several invitations, Jeff and I took Nick up on going
fishing at 5:30 in the morning. Half and hour before sunrise, the three
of us piled into our dinghy, The Duchess of Hazzard, and headed for the
point just outside the bay. It turned out that Nick was basically our
fishing guide, which was just awesome. I have basically zero salt water
fishing experience and Nick just wanted to drive the Duchess and give
advice on changing lures, setting drag, and playing fish. Jeff caught
two barracuda but we only kept one. I had several bites but used my
amazing angler skills to release the fish before getting them within
view range. I had to do this because the ferocity of the fight in these
fish made it evident they were so big that Jeff would have cried with
shame and Nick would have crashed the dinghy, frozen in a state of awe.
Crashing the dinghy wouldn't have been all the hard really. Shortly
after sunrise the charter fleet started out of Cabo. For the next couple
hours there was a steady stream of powerboats flying by us at 20 knots.
Most of them actually aimed for us. Nick would dodge a boat and its wake
would splash us while the gringos onboard smoked cigars and drank beer.
After the fishing boat rush hour we stopped getting bites trolling and
decided to jig for a while. Four pelicans swam near the boat and tried
to eat our lures whenever we pulled them out of the water. This turned
into a game of Nick luring a bird in close and me squirting it with our
hand bilge pump. We got a lot of miles out of this game since pelicans
are slow learners and we're easily amused.
Fishing trip aside, it's time to get out of Cabo San Lucas. Our plan
is to stop in Los Frailles for a day and then head for La Paz.
Ensenada to Cabo San Lucas.
Got to Cabo San Lucas yesterday, 6-days after leaving Ensenada. Once
again we went about 150 miles offshore and had 10-25kts of wind from the
northwest except for the last few hours. We ran the engine for about 10
hours total for the entire trip. Our first offshore passage since
reaching San Diego and it was a fantastic reminder of the amazing
feeling of sailing in the open ocean. We caught a small yellowfin tuna,
which we again seared and made sashimi out of. This was easily the best
tuna I've ever had. There were a few firsts for me during this passage.
I saw my first sea turtles, one of which was bigger than a garbage can
lid, as well as first schools of flying fish and first breaching manta
rays. The breaching rays are really amazing. They shoot out of the
water, sometimes a few feet, and land with a loud smack since they're
big flat things. Someone told me it was to rid themselves of parasites.
I don't know if that's why and I don't care, it's just really cool to
see.
Upon arrival, we anchored about 100 yards from the beach in Cabo.
There were jet skis, parasail boats, and booze-cruises zipping all
around us as we set our bow and stern anchors. Add the horrible Eagles
cover band coming from one of the beach cantinas and it was all kind of
overwhelming.
Going ashore only increased the sensory overload. Cabo is a bit like
Vegas in that there are several expensive restaurants located half a
block from a bunch of cigar shops, strip clubs, and discoteques. This
was a huge contrast from Ensenada where the tourist section was confined
to a couple of blocks within the city. In Cabo the entire city is the
tourist section.
After landing at the dinghy dock we ran into Mike, Laura, and Nick,
our friends from the Eshamy. They led us to a reasonably priced
restaurant, called the Crazy Lobster, a block or two from the main
tourist traps. A few fajitas and cold beers later the intensity of began
to dull and we proceeded to celebrate our second successful offshore
passage. We started with overpriced Cuban cigars. This wasn't my first
Cuban and once again I was unimpressed. The whole "forbidden fruit"
aspect doesn't improve the taste enough for me. I suspect Castro has
become complacent in his old age and isn't keeping up with the torture
of tobacco farmers. I should write him, or maybe they'd be better with
the Russian navy parked off Florida but I doubt it.
Cigars were followed with a tour of the Cabo clubs. I was surprised
at how Americanized the clubs were both in their setup and the number of
gringos present. The pinnacle of these, of course, is former Van Halen
front man Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Cantina. Cabo Wabo is a monument to
butt rock and Mecca for hair-hessian Camero rockers the world over.
While this town is highly obnoxious, it did provide a great place to
celebrate another great offshore passage.
Happy Thanksgiving from Mexico.
We wanted to wish everyone back home a happy thanksgiving and let
everyone in cold rainy Seattle know that it is about 75 degrees here and
we are all wearing shorts and t-shirts.
We just got back from our Thanksgiving dinner at McDonalds. We
decided to have something 'American' today. It's kind of funny that we
have "drank the water", eaten the vegetables and the tacos made on the
street for the last week, and I haven't had any stomach troubles until I
eat a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and fries.
Leaving Ensenada.
We started our preparations to leave Ensenada. After cleaning out our
iceboxes we walked about a mile into town to a place that sells block
ice. When we got there they were loading blocks of ice that were about
1'x2'x4' into the back of a pickup. After they were finished with
loading the truck, one of the guys brought another big chunk of ice out
and with some deft work with an ice pick and tongs had each of our
backpacks packed with blocks of ice. 
Hauling
heavy, wet backpacks a mile back to the boat set off a conversation
about rebuilding our refrigeration system.
We had dinner tonight with our friends Domonique and Ghislaine aboard
the Swagman II. Words can't begin to describe the hospitality this
couple has shown us. Every time we go over there we're trying some new
French apertif with Swiss cigars and hors d'oeuvres, all while they
regale us with wonderful stories. Last time they were over to the
Sohcahtoa we had beer and peanut M and M's. The Swagman II is staying in
Ensenada until January while Domonique and Ghislaine go back to France
to visit family. Hopefully they'll catch up to us in Puerto Vallarta in
February.
Cougars WIN!! Huskies suck!!
We just got back from the Sports Betting Bar after watching the Washington
State University Cougars football team beat the University
of Washington Huskies, which are our sworn enemies and cross-state
rivals. You can't even begin to imagine how sweet this victory(second in
as many years) is for all of us Cougar fans and Cougar alumni. These
purple and gold wearing sons-of-bitches have been habitually kicking the
crap out of us for pretty much as long as I can remember. This also
means that come Monday morning, one of my ex-coworkers, Jeff Dahlin,
will be wearing a Cougar sweatshirt as payment for a running wager that
he and I have had for the last 5 years. Here is a picture of Jeff, being
a very good sport and paying his bet. Oh, and Josh Miller owes me $20
dollars. .. you little bitch.
Dune Buggies Kickin Ass
A few weeks ago in San Diego Matt rented a documentary called Dust to Glory about the Baja 1000 desert race. A
few minutes into the movie shows Ensanada, Mexico in mid-November. We
instantly realized that we'd be in Ensanada around the same time as the
race and the power of the Internet confirmed this.
Today we saw the beginning of the Baja 1000, the longest off-road
race in the world. About half an hour before the trucks started there
were about a dozen helicopters buzzing around. These are the chase
vehicles for the top competitors in the million dollar Trophy Trucks. 
They also
provided a way to keep track of the trucks for a while after we lost
sight of them. These trucks and the Class I dune buggies were impressive
and at parts of the track you could get within a few feet of them as
they rushed by. As impressive as they are, the motorcycles are still the
fastest vehicles on the course. We missed the start of the motorcycles
at 6:30am and we'll miss their finish around 3am the next morning (They
should feel lucky that Mark Hasting, Kevin Summers and I aren't
competing). Still, the most admirable of the racers are the Class 11.
These are essential stock VW Bugs with a roll cage that run the same
course as everyone else. These have huevos.
We have some great pictures and short videos of the race on the site
now. Enjoy.
Big Truck movies
I took some movies at the Baja1000 start yesterday. Here are my three
favories, one, two, and three.
If you want to see the rest, go to the
media directory. They all start with the MVI prefix.
We did it. . .we finally left San Diego!
Last night around 10:00pm we cast off our lines for Ensenada, Mexico.
It is always prudent to leave the country under the cover of night and
in incredibly dense fog with a lingering hangover from the night before.
Ensenada is only about 70 miles south and since there was no wind we
motored the entire way. I had forgotten how sensitive I am to the sounds
of the boat, and every off movement, or change in engine RPM woke me up
with a slight feeling of dread.
We are here at Baja Naval, which is a marina in Ensanada. Moorage is
about 20 dollars US and that includes free WiFi and free calls to the
U.S., which I think we have already made up the cost of our moorage
with. When we went to find lunch today, we went to a restauraunt
recommended by the guy at the marina, we stood like 3 idiots in a crowd
of people, and it was pretty obvious that everyone else knew what to do.
A friendly guy told us that we needed to go around the corner, and when
we went there, it was an empty alley. . .we think it may have been a
gentle "get the fuck out of here". So we went to the Gordita place next
door and we had a huge lunch with big Coca-Colas for 10$ for all three
of us. Matt and Casey just got back from the bars and said that 2 beers
were 25 pesos, which we think is about $2.30.
Casey's Sleepwalking/Catastrophe Preparedness Drill
This story takes place around the fifth night of our passage to San
Diego(around September 5th). For the previous couple of nights the wind
had picked up to about 25 knots during the night. It only took one late
night reefing to teach us to put a reef or two in before the winds
picked up. It's a lot easier to shake a reef out by yourself than it is
to put in a reef with someone helping you. During this time, the swell
was approximately 8-10ft with wind waves up to 4ft. The bumpy ride of
the waves in conjunction with the noises the waves produced by rattling
around everything in the boat made sleeping difficult to say the least.
Matt and Jeff had taken to wearing earplugs and swore that they slept
like logs with the aid of the earplugs.
After two nights with hardly any sleep I decided to try the earplugs
after ending my evening watch. I was extremely tired though and not
ready to put all my stock in some little foam earplugs so, I spent about
20 minutes eliminating every clink and clank from the galley to the
v-berth. With a relatively silent boat, I went to sleep.
Now, the next part of the story I've got to include the accounts I
received the next day from Jeff and Matt. You may be able to cobble
together the truth using all three.
My Account: Okay, so I wake up from some exciting dream. For
the life of me I wish I could remember what that dream was about because
it would undoubtedly offer some insight into my following reaction.
Here's what I remember. I sit up, semi-lucid, and say something. I can't
remember what I said. All I can remember is not hearing anything, not
even the sound of my own voice. Panic sets in. I yell something. Again,
I can't remember what. I decide that I've got to get out of the boat so
I head for the cockpit. I get to the aft cabin and see Jeff standing
there and Matt up in the cockpit. This snaps me out of my trance-like
state enough to realize that my yelling may have caused some confusion.
I apologize profusely and return to bed.
Matt's Version: Matt was on watch and the only one awake for
the whole affair. He heard yelling coming from inside the boat and
hollered, "What are you guys yelling about?" down at us. Next thing he
sees is Jeff and I standing in the companionway with me offering my
apologies. He shakes his head at our combined confusion and continued
his watch.
Jeff's Account: Jeff was asleep in one of the bunks in the aft
cabin. He claims that I yelled "Abandon Ship." I can neither confirm nor
deny this. He bolts out of his bunk in time for me to rush back. At
which point he correctly assesses that I'm in no condition to issue such
a command. He recalls that after my mumbling, half-asleep apologies I
proceeded to the aft head where, I speculate, I tried to turn off the
light. However, our light switches have three positions. The middle is
off, the left and right are the bright and dim settings. Jeff says that
after about a half dozen times of me switching the light from bright to
dim he asked, "What are you doing Casey?" To which I replied,
"Apparently I'm having a rave with myself in the bathroom."
I haven't worn earplugs to bed since.
Fuel for the extreme atheletes that we are.
Last weekend my buddy Jesse Roberge came down from Sacremento to
visit us. He works for a company called Champion
Nutrition that specializes in sports nutrition. He brought down a
bunch of his company's product for us to use on the trip. I think that
the meal supplement shake mix will be great during long passages when it
is a pain to cook.
Jesse competes internationally in the shot put and is sponsored by
Champion Nutrition. I have known him since High School and one of my
most painful memories from high school football involved Jesse and I in
one-on-one hitting drills. I was about 210 pounds, and I think "mound of
flesh" was clocking in about 300. The details aren't so clear any more,
but it went like this. Whistle, crunch, PAIN, Whistle.
Soy queso.
So we have decided to go to Mexico next, instead of Hawaii. We will
be heading down as far south as Puerto Vallarta (maybe to Ixtapa) and
then in March we will head to the Marquesas (where survivor was filmed).
We decided this after getting the cruising guide for Hawaii and
realizing that there are maybe 4 good anchorages in all of the Islands.
Coming as far south as San Diego allowed us to decide which way we
wanted to go. We have our new main sail and are now waiting for Ullman
sails to finish our new jib. We should get that sail by the end of the
week and have just a few more 'chores' to do before heading south. Today
we finished getting the paperwork for heading to Mexico, including
fishing permits and tourist visas. Our current plan is to clear customs
in Ensenada and then head offshore down to Cabo San Lucas, or around the
corner of the Baja peninsula to La Paz. From there we will explore some
of the Sea of Cortez and then head down to Mazatlan on the mainland.
Matt really wants to leave the boat for a while and travel to the
Yucatan to see the Mayan ruins, so we might just do that. Other than
that, we will be brusing up on our spanish and buying toilet paper for
the inevitable Montezuma's revenge to strike once we are down there.
You can't pick your neighbors.
It seemed like a fairly normal night at 1:30am when the fat shirtless
guy (that lives on the boat in the picture) went zipping by our boat in
the anchorage, standing in his dingy, singing Janice Joplin songs. He
had a 4 foot piece of PVC pipe attached to the handle of his outboard
motor so that he could drive while he stood and held onto the bow line.
We saw him earlier in the day up on the waterfront selling his
prescription drugs for cash. After a couple of laps around and through
the 20 or so boats here, he let out a big "Whooo-hooo" and headed out
into the dark San Diego Harbor. It was quite entertaining, but not
really that out of the ordinary.
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Casey McNeese, Jeff Stewart and Matt Smith. All Rights Reserved.