The End - Liam

Our trip has come to an end back on the hard in Guaymas. Forcing ourselves
to bring it back up instead of taking it to Central America due to lack of
time was hard, but like we’ve said every trip, "next time." Leaving the boat
means big work time, so that we can get it ready for us to return to Canada,
but also keep it in shape for when we return next trip. Getting the boat
ready doesn’t only mean full clean up, but put everything away including
kayaks and dinghy. Once the trip is over you start to really appreciate
everything that has just happened, for example I will be returning to a
minus thirty climate after being in above thirty for two months. One of the
main highlights for me was the fishing, although I was only able to catch
two edible fish, the time spent was worth all of the fun. We will be back in
Toronto next Thursday, goodbye and farewell fellow followers.

Kai's blog

Blog
Its been a while since i've done the blog, so i cant remember the details of everything. I'll start in Isla San Francisco, which is an anchorage that we had been looking forwards to. It's very protected and very large. While we were there, we got of the boat and went for a hike. We went up a mountain and had a very nice view of the ocean. We stayed there for two days and one night, and then went to La Paz. The main reason that we were going to La Paz was to pick up our friends. There names were Brian, Sussana, Sebastian, and Savannah. We stayed in the anchorage there at first, and then headed into the marina before they arrived. We did tons of boat work before they arrived, such as polishing the metals, getting rid of stains on the boat, sanding and gripping the steps, and some other things. Four people arrived at the boat, the parents and two kids. We spent the day playing with kids while the parents did the groceries. After wards we all went to a restaurant that we had gone to a couple of years before. It was very good, and I had burritos. The next day we all set of to the islands. Our first stop was Balandra. We took them there because it's a very good place for snorkeling, and it has lots of long, white beaches. The two kids had never snorckeled before, and that was the first place that Liam and I ever snorkeled at too. After the snorkeling, we went to the beach. We spent a couple of hours there, and it was very fun, however,  just as we were leaving, we saw a huge Electric Ray, right were we had been swimming. That night, we all sat in the cockpit and had our drinks as the sun set, and after wards, all the kids played a card game called Malarky. The only problem with that anchorage is that it's very unprotected, and that night, it became very very windy. I slept through it, but apparently the winds were about thirty knots.
The next morning, we sailed over to the anchorage were we are now. It started of a bit rocky, but then got better. As soon as we arrived, we all went for a swim, and then had dinner. That night the kids all watched Mr. Beans holiday and then one episode of Fawlty Towers. They were both very funny. That night, the wind came again, but there were also waves this time. Luckily the anchor didn't drag, and the clothes that we drying on deck survived the night. This morning the kids did home-schooling, and now we are going to Isla San Francisco.
Bye

Random pics from the past week - Peter

I don't know what to write - Liam

We have finaly gotten to the beaches and the little villages, which is what I call the real Mexico, mainly because of the little villages though.So the past few days have been really relaxing, I just finished my school work for the month so I got a little break for a couple days, but now I'm starting my Febuary work.We have been alone in the last couple anchorages so we have just really not done much. Except for the anchorage we are curently in, Puerto Balandra, we have been doing a lot. We went for a hike, because in our chart book it says there is a tienda and a little town across the island, so we set off at around two o'clock, at around four we checked the time and found out we had gone about a fifth of the distance we needed to, so we just headed back. Also this morning my brother and I went kyaking throughout the bay for a couple hours, then we were practicly starving to death so we went back to our boat. The last thing we did was go for another hike through the hills, the only difference is this time we actualy got where we were heading, the top of the mountain, which had a great view, then we went back to our boat and Kai made tacos/fajitas.So now I'm going to go watch my second favourite movie: Catch me if you can, with Leonardo Decaprio and Tom Hanks.

Steak - Kai

                Hello everyone.

                We left Santa Rosalia about three days ago to contiue south. I'm not sure if I liked the town much, because I spent most of the time in the bathroom. I'm not sure where it was that I got sick from, but I think that it was from a taco stand that we went to with a another couple. I thought the Tacos were very good, however, the next morning, I began to feel a bit strange, and it wasn't just me. My dad got something too, but he reacted a bit differently then me. My brother also got it, but not as bad as me. Also, the couple who we'd gone with for tacos felt sick, and the wife got very sick, just as sick as me, if not worse. So this lasted for about one week, and I even through up at one point. The wierd thing was, that during the whole thing, all that I could think about was food, eventhough I barely ate anything at all. I was craving a big steack, garlic bread, and then a huge bowl of pop corn. I was also craving dumplings and sushi.

                After a week, I finally began to feel better, so we were ready to leave Santa Rosalia. As my dad was getting the boat all ready, Liam and I went into town to get some food. We got stuff to make garlic bread, and five steaks, although we weren't sure that thats what kind of meat it actually was.

                So we left Santa Rosalia and went to Punta Chivato. I slept the whole way there. The anchorage was huge, but we were the only ones there. There didn't seem to be much there, expept a landing strip, a lot of half finished buildings, and a hotel. We got of the boat to look around, but there wasn't really anything there, except thousands of washed up shells. One night while we were there, we dicided to have the big meal. I was in charge of the garlic bread, and my dad was grilling the meat on the barbeque. It turned out amazing, and we even had some steak sauce to use. I ate two steaks, and a few peices of garlic bread. I was stuffed. We decided to eat the popcorn the next night, since we were too full.

                After about two days there, we decided to continue south, however, we wanted to try to just use the sails, no engine, even while getting the anchor up. It actually worked, and in no time, we were wizzing along with just the wind. It was pretty nice. We arrived in a large bay called Bahia Concepcion, which has about a dozen anchorages in it. The first one we stopped at was called Santis Pac, and it was pretty big, we were also pretty surprised to see a bunch of RV's on the shore. We got of the boat and looked around, but there wasnt't anything there, and we needed some fresh water. We also realized that my dad could not connect to the internet, so we decided to try another anchorage in the bay. So right now we are in Coyote Beach, and there are still many RV's. Once we arrived, a man swam up  to our boat and invited us to come eat dinner at some restaurant where they would also be showing a movie afterwards, so we went and ordered some fish and then watched the movie.  The fish was really good. Afterwards, we got a ride home with some nice people and then went to sleep.

Bye

Sick in Sant Rosalia - Peter

So we crossed over the Sea of Cortez. We left late in the afternoon so that we would arrive to the other side during daylight. A night passage. In a switch, Kai got seasick and Liam didn’t. It was a windy passage, with the wind almost on the nose. Kai and Liam were suppose to be on watch until midnight, but becuae Kai was seasick he had to go below to lie down.   Liam insisted on sitting out in the cockpit, but I could not leave him alone. It was nice to have his company, but it meant a long night for me. Because of the wind we arrived early and had to sit off Isla San Marcos for an hour until the sun came up. We anchored early in the morning, but what a desolate island. I had work to do and after finding out that there was no Internet connection, we decided to head over the Santa Rosalia where we have been for the last week. Unfortunately the three of us, and half of the other cruisers on the dock we are on have been sick for most of the time we have been here. Santa Rosalia is one of the nicest towns we have been to. We’ll probably only remember that we were all sick. In any event, everything is going well and we are having a good time. We’ll be leaving here within the next day or so to some deserted anchorage. Kai is doing the dishes while Liam is curled up in my bunk watching a movie on the computer. As Liam just said, ‘this is the life’…

Resturant Drama - Liam

Since the last blog I posted, the highlight for me has been crossing the Sea of Cortez. Although my brother got sea sick so it was a completely different story for him. For me that passage was what I came to Mexico for, sitting out in the cockpit with the wind blowing in my face as Coldplay blasted through the speakers looking at the stars, I could go on about it but I’d probably bore you guys. After the passage we got up early in the morning to anchor at Isla San Marcos, but we left a couple hours later to go to Santa Rosalia, which is where we have been for the last few days. It’s a nice town, not one of my favourites but still fun to be in (mainly because of the food). There are a few other cruisers here which we have been going out for dinner with, one of the nights we got meter long pizzas at a restaurant. Because of all this unhealthy food I have been going for runs in the morning on the malacon, which is very exciting because I get to run next to the sea lions and dolphins. The other night when we were at the restaurant eating meter long pizzas, my dad went to the bathroom and was taking a long while so I began to get worried, so my brother and I went to check up on him. Through the glass door we could vaguely see him on the floor, so we just thought he had probably eaten to much or got food poisoning, so we told the other cruisers. A while later he came out and told us that he was stomach sick, but hadn’t thrown up, the main problem was that when he got in the bathroom he passed out. We then told him that there was a cut and a bump on his forehead that he wasn’t aware of, that he must have got from hitting the floor. We are still completely clueless of how it happened, but he feels better. So that’s basically it everyone, stay tuned for next time.

Liam

Being Seasick - Kai

Hello everyone
So we finally left Guaymas, and puttered over to a small marina, about forty minutes from the city. The sailors call it the "Almost free marina" since it costs about three dollars a night. We stayed there for a few nights, doing school work and boat work. We also had to hike to the top of a nearby hill to get internet.
While we were there, my brother and I decided to pump up the dinghy, and ride it around the bay. It was alot of fun, and never got boring. Besides that, there wasn't really anything to do there, as it was pretty much away from anything, except for a fish factory which was on the other side of the hill.
After a few days, we decided that we were ready to cross the sea of cortez to the other side. We also dicided that we would do it in the company of one of our new friends, a couple on a boat called Kashmira. So we left at about four thirty PM, and the seas were perfect at first, but as soon as we passed the point, the waves and the wind became stronger, and I quickly began to feel seasick. It was horrible. Been seasick is probably one of the most horrible feelings in the world. You feel tired, and you want to just sleep, but the second you take your eyes of off the horizon, you begin to feel as if your going to barf. You also lose your appitite, so you have no interest in eating, and you don't feel like talking. You just sit there shivering, with a head ache, trying to keep down your lunch. Luckily, I did not barf, but I almost did. My dad kindly let me go lie in bed for the rest of the night, instead of staying on watch till twelve. However, being in bed didn't really help much either, because even thought I did fall asleep at first, when I woke up, I felt almost as worse as before. All night long, I would go in and out of sleep. I thought I would definitly barf before the morning but I didn't.
The next morning, we arrived in Isla San Marcos, a small anchorage. Even though there was the slightest bit of waves in the anchorage, I still felt pretty seasick from the night before. My dad was unable to connect to the internet, so we dicided to just come over to Santa Rosalia, which took about two hours. On the way we saw our first dolphins, seals, manta rays, and whales of the trip. I was so happy when we arrived here because there is a beakwater, so there are absolutly no waves at all. It took a few days, but thankfully, I feel much better.
This was our first time in Santa Rosalia, and so far we really like it hear. This town was originally a mining town, and still is. It was set up by the french in the 1800's, and Gustof Eiffel (the man who designed the eiffel tower) even designed a church here. If you look around, lots of the old buildings that were used for mining are still around, but falling apart. It looks really cool. So today we spent the day being tourists, and for dinner, we went to an amazing taco place with Kashmira. It was some of the best tacos i've had all trip.A
Bye

Maiden Voyage

I may aswell just say that all of my blog posts are going to be rather short, one of the reasons is because I would much rather be watching a movie right now, unless of course I was getting paid for this which I am not, another reason is because, well there arent really any other reasons. The next day after my last post, we decided to go walk around the sports track where I joined a soccer team two years ago, hoping that we might find them. We didnt, but as we were walking off four kids my age called me over to play with them, so I did. I played for about an hour with the locals, which was really fun, but then we left and went back to the boat. The most exciting part of the trip so far happened last night, we were put into the water!! After ten days of hard work on the boat, it was finaly a real floating boat. The bad part though was that it was the first day of a very bad windstorm, which is currently still happening as I type this, it was fine though. This morning we did our first passage which was just twenty minutes long across the bay to a marina. Since then not much has happened besides groceries, and my brother and I skateboarded with some locals, but other then that not much. I am going to go watch a movie now, I think Ill watch Run Fat Boy Run.




Bye, Liam.

Last Day On The Hard- Kai

Hi everyone. Nothing too interesting happened today. So we woke up very early this morning, much earlier then i was ready for, and began our homeschooling, however i was not able to do much since the internet was not working, but I did my art and read a bit of Romeo and Juliet for english, which was torture. I highly recommend not reading it, since it's not very good. I also don't recommend watching the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, since it is equally as bad.
So after that work, my father demanded that we scrub the boat down in the sweltering heat. I also had to do a bit of work with my dad on the anchor chain.
Unfortunatly, no skateboarding was allowed that day, so nothing very fun happened, except for our farewell to the little puppy, Peanut. We were very sad to say bye, and i'm sure she felt the same way about us leaving. I believe I heard a soft cry of sadness come from her as we left.
So once all the work was done, the big machine came, picked us up, and put us in the water. It definitly feels a lot nicer to be floating in the water, instead of in the smelly yard. For dinner, we had some pasta, and then I was told to do the dishes. Tonight i'll be watching a movie on my computer but im not sure what yet. Bye.

A Week on the hard - Peter

We have been here a week. The  first few days were a blur while we adjusted to being back at the boat. There were a couple of other boaters in the yard that we knew when we arrived, but in the days since we have got to know just about everybody here. New people are arriving at their boats daily, and everone goes out for tacos at the roadside taco stand up the road in the evening. Everyone is getting ready to put their boats in the water and we are all heading the same in the same direction. Once we sail out we will probably bump into people we have met here in anchorages all the way down the Baja.

Kai and Liam are both doing well with their home schooling. They both got into the routine almost immediately. Their days are spent doing their school work, skate boarding, and making meals. They get their own breakfasts, their own lunches, and since we have been here they have taken turns making dinner. And every now and then they help with with boat jobs. Four days of work and we now have a working windlass once again. That was my job and it took all my time, as well as help from half a dozen other boaters over the last few days. Not sure what I would have done without the help of the community here.

Liam sanded the prop on his birthday, and Kai scraped the hull. Tonight Kai is making dinner, and tomorrow they will wash the boat down. At the end of the day the boat will get put in the water, and we will be a floating boat once again. Then everything changes again.

And for the record, the ungodly hour that Kai and Liam are forced to get up is asfter the morning cruisers’ net at 8:30. And the “big tip” I gave the taxi driver amounted to $1.50 Canadian…

Boring Blog - Liam

This blog is going to be rather short today, to tell you the truth not much


has happened besides boring work since the last one I posted. I guess Ill

start with Peanut, since the first day at the marina, my brother and I have

played with the marina dog who is said to be named Peanut. Shes a vicious

purebread Guaymas mut hound, that chases my brother and I back from the

washrooms and tears apart our garbage and grocery bags, shes also about a

foot tall and a foot long but thats not important. Aperently ever since she

was a smaller puppy then she is now the people living and working on their

boats have taken care of her. Besides this the last couple of days since we

have arrived have been pretty plain, I have been forced awake every morning

at an ungodly hour by my dad to get started on my homeschooling which takes

a couple of hours, but once Im done I get to look forwads to my cup of

instint noodle soup. After my brother and I are finished homeschooling, and

ofcourse our noodle soups, we leave the boat (AKA the work trap) to go

skateboard at the boat repair shack, because of its smooth cement surface.

Tomorrow will be the same as today, except I may have a couple dozen new

mosquito bites, so thats basicly it for now.



Good bye, Liam.

The Taxi Ride From Jesus- Kai

Today was another day of work on the boat, but we didn't spend the whole day working. We woke up after a long and cold, cold night, and quickly ate up our breakfasts. By brother and I began our home schooling, while my dad worked away at the engine and the battery. At certain points my brother and I helped out around the boat, like taking out the garbage, helping make sure the engine was still working and even helping with the pee bucket. While we were running the engine, some old man made a joke by saying that the boat would go faster if it was actually in the water. It was a very amusing joke.
After we were done all our work, we decided to eat lunch. I had a tasty noodle soup, while my brother ate three hot dogs, and my dad ate a plain old sandwich. I decided to do some art before we headed into town, since I was unable to skateboard after bruising my tail bone from falling a few days earlier.
So we caught the bus into town and walked around a bit, getting lots of attention from the locals, i'm sure, with Liam's blonde hair, my shorts, and all of our sandals. We found a nice little restaurant to eat some tacos and bean juice, (Yes, bean juice. It was actually pretty good.) and then headed to the groceries to buy a bit more food.
We decided to take a taxi back, instead of the bus, since we had groceries, and weren't one hundred percent sure were to catch it. So we loaded up the groceries and began our way back. Right away, the driver began to talk to the three of us in the little english he spoke. He said that his name was Jesus, which is pretty common in Mexico. His english was actually pretty good, since there are almost zero gringos in Guaymas. However, he did make a few mistakes, such as telling us that his son was forty seven, when he was only about forty, but besides that, it was pretty good. Once we arrived at the boat, my dad decided to give him a large tip, since he'd been so kind.
That night I continued my art, and know it's movie time. My brothers watching Monsters Inc. and I will be watching A Clockwork Orange.
Bye

A Tale of Two Dogs - Peter

We arrived at the US / Mexican border at about 4 PM. The bus pulled up to fenced off buildings and stopped. The US border guards, dressed in bullet proof vests,  tasers and guns at their hips came aboard and spoke in Spanish. The only thing I understood was ‘compendia’?, which of course I did not. Then they brought the dog aboard. Wagging its tail it sniffed the two young women seated behind us. They and their luggage were swiftly taken off the bus and did not come back. After half an hour or so the bus was allowed to move ahead into Mexico. The bus stopped. A guy in an old uniform of some kind came aboard and spoke in Spanish, then started moving up the ail. People were handing him change. When he got to our seat I said ‘no intienda’, to which he responded ‘tip’. I gave him ten pesos and he continued on. He got off and the bus rolled on. That is odd, I thought, when are they going to take us off, ask for our passports, look through our luggage, etc. I asked if anyone new if we were going to stop. The only person on the bus that spoke English was a woman at the back and she said ‘yes, soon’. OK I thought. I don’t want to be in Mexico without the proper papers. But we were. The bus never did stop at the border, except for the one lone border guard who came aboard asking for a tip. Fortunately half an hour later the bus stopped at a check point and I was able to convince someone that we wanted documents. The bus was held up for almost an hour while they reluctantly did the immigration paperwork for us.

We arrived into Guaymas near 11PM, and after almost 48 hours of travel we awoke the next morning on the boat.  We were greeted by a happy, little puppy sitting at the bottom of the ladder and chewing on bone. Well fed and a flee collar around his neck I assumed he was from one of the boats in the yard. It was as though he new there were kids on our boat and had been waiting for them to get up.  We did the survey of the yard, met some of the other people working on their boats, the whole while the kids played with their new companion.

We learned that his name is Peanut, and that he is one of the stray dogs that lives in the yard. Someone had put a flea collar on him and everyone new him. He was the yard puppy. Over the course of the day we saw other creatures lurking about. One such fellow was brave enough to venture close to our boat. No one in the yard knows this guy. No treats are thrown to him, and I doubt that anyone has named him. The kids and I have decided we’ll call him Riley (as in dark rye bread), and have taken to feeding him over Peanut, who clearly is not in need.

There is an analogy here somewhere between no one caring if you are crossing the border into Mexico, and no one caring if you are an ugly dog, but I have to go unplug a toilet so I’ll leave you to ponder it.

Leaving Canada-Liam

After about three years of waiting for this moment to go back to the boat, it finally happened, but at five in the morning. We walked out to the taxi as the ice froze my face, and then once we arrived at the bus depo, we waited for around an hour. The bus ride was only around three hours, and the lake was covered in steam and fog, which gave off a very unique look. 

 

We had heard about the snow storm currently hitting Boston, which was a threat to us, because our connection flight to Phoenix Arizona was Boston. But when we got to the Buffalo airport, they told us that instead of our flight being delayed or canceled, it was actually advanced by around three hours, but still had to wait those three extra hours in Boston. The flight was less then an hour, and the flight to Phoenix was five and a half hours, so it was around eleven once we arrived at our hotel in Phoenix, feeling like one due to time change.

 

The next afternoon at twelve thirty we got on the Tufesa bus, and left on a ten hour ride to Guaymas where our boat is currently kept on the hard. But along the way, when we stopped at the border, or should I say when we didn't stop at the border things began to go wrong. The security came on and told us something in Spanish that we had no clue what he was saying, so we didn't do anything. After that the bus pulled away, without having to get off or fill out our immigration documents. This began to worry us, because if these documents weren't filled out, we would illegally be in Mexico. My dad asked a lady that spoke little English where we would get these documents done, she thought we were asking where to get food, so she just casually answered next stop. Once we got to the next stop my dad found out that if we were to not get these documents done we could be fined, or kicked out of the country. But luckily at the next stop we were able to get the documents filled out, but held up the bus for around half an hour. We arrived at the boat late at night, and since the next morning, we have just been fixing up the boat and getting  it ready.

 

So now I have to go clean my bunk, its already filthy believe it or not, and then I'm going to watch a movie, Liam.

The Arrival - Kai

Hello, everyone. As you may or may or not know, the three brave men have decided to continue on our trip through Mexico, aboard the beutiful Outrider.
Our trip began at five AM, on January third. We caught a taxi and drove to the bus station, while my dad had a nice chat with the driver. Once aboard the bus, we drove to Buffalo, which took about three hours. Very nice views of the lake were seen during that drive.
Once in Buffalo, we got our heavy bags and entered the airport. We didn't have to wait very long to board the plane, so that was very nice. The plane was pretty small, since we were only going to Boston, so my brother and I were very surprised to see TV's on the back of the seats. We dicided to watch the Naked Gun 3. It was very entartaining. Once we arrived in Boston, we had to wait about 4 hours for our flight to Pheonix, which I spent attempting to figure out how to download the correct software to allow me to watch my DVD's. Once on the plane, we watched Modern Family and South Park for the duration of the flight. At one point, we even noticed Toronto out the window, which meant we'd just gone in a big circle. We eventually landed, and then caught an airport bus to our cozy hotel. I happily went to sleep right away.
The next morning, we ate some free food at the hotel buffet, which kind of sucked, and then succefully got the right the software for my movies. Before we left, some guy came and gave my dad a nice, fiberglass guitar, which is now the boat guitar. I guess my dad didnt like the mariachi guitar we bought on a previous trip. After all that, we got a taxi to the Tufesa bus terminal. My dad had another nice chat with the driver. Before we got on the bus, we bought our first real Tacos of the trip, even though we were still in Pheonix.
The bus we got on would take us to Guaymas, where our boat was, however it would take ten hours to get there, but that wasn't a problem, since I was now able to watch my movies. I decided to watch the classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as it's my second favourite movie. I don't know what Liam watched. Probably something bad. Half way through my movie, my batteries died. I spent the rest of the ride listening to my Ipod and watching the movies dubbed in spanich, being shown to the passengers. The trip wasn't so bad, except for a little confusion at the boarder with our passports, but that problem was quickly figured out. Once in Guaymas, we caught a taxi to our boat, but my dad was no longer able to have a chat with the driver, since the driver spoke nearly no english. Once on the boat, we all went to sleep. I had a very pleasant sleep. The next moring, we caught the bus into town, ate lunch, bought some groceries, and then came back. we spent the remainder of the day cleaning up, getting things organised, and then finding some concrete to skateboard on. For dinner we had some delishes bean tacos, and then I began to ride this blog.
Thanks for reading. Bye.