The journey began November 2nd. Like the crazy work-aholic Executives we are, we worked up until two days before we left. So needless to say the finally weeks of working and preparing the boat were absolutely crazy. We needed to get going just to keep our sanity and stop the outflow of cash on boat toys!

We dropped the dock lines late in the afternoon and sailed to Sausilito. We watched the sunset and the San Francisco city lights as we rememisted about all the times we had sailed the Bay. We enjoyed a bottle of wine, said a final toast of good-bye to family and friends. We wondered what our adventure and new lifestyle would have in store for us.

We headed out under the Golden Gate at day break and sailed to Monterey. A storm was brewing down the Big Sur coast so we decided to wait it out and spent several days in Monterey. It gave us a chance to finish a couple of the boat projects that weren't quite done. Sharon enjoy visiting one more time with her sister Shelly in Aptos. We spent a little time window shopping in town and just enjoying Monterey.

We headed south in a good weather window...almost to good...flat seas and no wind, we motored most the way to the Channel Islands. Spent a night achored off Santa Cruz Island, then continued with a lovely over night sail to Santa Catalina Island. On Catalina we spent a day on the northeast side of the island at Catalina Harbor, then continued around the island to Avalon. Vaughn's cousin Dave works as a dive master in Avalon on a dive boat. We found Dave just after he had passed his "Capitan's License". So we celebrated with "Capitan Dave". Dave took us out diving the next day. We did 3 dives, the kelp was beautiful, Dave caught us a lobster for a little surf and turf dinner, excellent!. The last dive was pretty amazing during the entire dive we were surrounded by a huge school of little bait fish...probably mackerel, they all moved exactly together, there were thousands and thousands of them they were everywhere! It was great!

Vaughn playing with the fish

We said good bye to Dave and headed to San Diego. We spent another five days in San Diego doing all your last minute shopping and provisioning. It was our last chance in the good old U.S.A. to find the stuff we thought we needed. We bicycled all over town, getting our Mexican Visa and Fishing License and all kinds of stuff. We also did more final (are you every really done with a boat?) boat projects. Between the projects and the running around, we were still very much in Executive fast pace mode on a Silicon Valley time schedule. We rushed out of town and headed south on the evening of November 23rd. We crossed into Mexico about 10:00pm!

We had wonderful winds. We flew down the coast and had a beautiful night sail, arriving mid day at Punta Colnet. The wind continued to build as it was blowing 25 knots in the anchorage. We tried to get a good night sleep but the anchor alarm woke us at 4:00am. We decided not to second guess whether we were dragging anchor or not...we were up...so we set sail. Had a fast sail to Isle San Martin.

We spent Thanksgiving at Isle San Martin. The island was only about a mile across. It had a pretty little anchorage. The island was full of seals and birds. We went for a walk and it was amazing how many different types of plants and cactus were on the island, given the books say this area only gets about 2 inches of rain a year! During our walk we almost stepped on a seal, we think it might have been an elephant seal pup. The seal had partially covered itself with sand and we got to within two feet of it before it moved and looked up. We were shocked, he was shocked, we just never expected you could get that close to animal before it looked up....guess these seals don't see many people. There were lots of seals, they did not seemed at all concerned that we were there. We also got introduced to "Jumping Catus" they are nasty little devils that seem to stick themselves into your legs even if you are careful during your hikes. We headed back to the boat to cook up a turkey dinner with all the fixings. It was quite a different Thanksgiving from Sharon's 22 year tradition of camping in Yosemite. We had fun, but really missed seeing our family and friends.

We continued south the following day with nice winds. We spent the night anchored off Isle Jeronimo and then sailed to San Carlos the following day. We planned to anchor there for the night but the winds were so strong and the anchorage was extremely bumpy and rolly. We decided we would probalby get just as much sleep sailing so we sailed through the night to Island Cedros. We arrived at Cedros in the morning. Cedros is a large island 20 miles long. The island is very beautiful. Steep high mountains raise right out of the water. The mountains are of all different color rocks; red, yellow, browns, oranges, grays and blacks. It reminded us of a dessert version of the Big Sur coast line. Very pretty. We enjoyed several days at Cedros. Dingy around to several coves. Traded the local fisherman t-shirts for lobsters and fish. We had several wonderful dinners.

We had a great sail from Cedros to Bahia Tortugas (Turtle Bay). Bahia Tortugas was the first place in over a week that we saw a real town. The town is miles (about 100!) from anywhere but there are about 4000 local residents that are makeing ends meet by fishing or supporting the fisherman.

From Bahia Tortugas we had another great sail to Bahia Asuncion. The following day we sailed on to Bahia Santa Maria. Santa Maria was a beautiful bay. We stayed for several days. Santa Maria had miles and miles of beautiful white sand beaches. We walked for miles along the beaches and collected shells. It was amazing how many different kinds of shell we found, there were thousands and thousands.... We had fun collecting the different kinds, some where quite beautiful. Sharon collected a bunch of little shells for making jewerly. We visited the local fishermans camp and bought lobster (cheap) for dinner. We had a wonderful time in Bahia Santa Maria...it was the first time we really just enjoyed a couple days of hiking and beach walking...without worrying about "boat projects" or being on the move. From Bahia Santa Maria we had a short sail to Bahia Magdalena (Mag Bay). Mag Bay is where all the Gray Whale come during the winter to give birth...so we had hoped to see a bunch of whales... but, we were too early, they don't really start arriving until Janunary/February. We didn't see any whales.






Daily on the ocean we would see several to hundreds of dolphins. The dolphins are wonderful. They will come and race the boat, jumping just in front of the boat..riding the bow wake... hundreds of them at times all racing along the boat like it is a game. They will appear out of nowhere and stay with us at times for a half hour. You can almost touch them as they swim right in front of the boat...they are wonderful animals!

From Mag Bay we had a great overnight sail to Cabo San Lucas. We have been surprised at how much wind we have had coming down the west coast. Most of our sailing we have had 15 to 25 knots of wind. Sometimes even more than we really wanted. Several of our night sails we had over 25 knots of wind with gust to 35. It beats motoring any day, but made for a couple long sleepless nights.

Cabo was a huge change from the previous month. Tourist town. It almost felt like you were back in the U.S.A. We stayed in Cabo 5 days. We enjoyed playing tourist. We went for our first scuba dive of the trip. The water was finally warm enough (77 degrees) to be inviting. The dive was nice. We put the boat in a Marina just for one day..the prices were outrageous. Almost 5 times what it cost at home or in Monterey....good old supply and demand theory at work in a tourist town. The marina cost were worth it only because of the unlimited supply of fresh water to clean the boat up. It's amazing how salty and dirty things get after a month at sea with no rain. We spent the day scrubbing REALITY from one end to the other.

We headed out of Cabo up into the Sea of Cortez toward La Paz. La Paz is about 150 miles north of Cabo. The winds were again blowing 15 to 25 knots. Only now instead of us running down the cost with them, we were heading north right into the wind. It's a hard days sail to beat it up against 25 knot wind. The best part of this sail was Sharon caught a 15 pound Mai Mai, they call them Doratos or the "Prince of the Sea of Cortez" here. We arrived at Los Frailes just as after sunset, enjoyed Mai Mai on the BBQ, them fell asleep. We spent several days in Los Frailes. It is a beautiful little bay. White sand beaches backed by beautiful steep rugged mountains. We did a couple Scuba dives in the Los Frailes area. One dive was on the Cabo Pulmo reef. It's the only living hard coral reef on the West coast of North America. The visability was not as good as we had hoped with only about 30 feet. Still good compared to home and a lot warmer water. Our second dive was really beautiful. Lots and lots of beautiful fish; Cortez Angels and King Angels over a foot long. We saw a huge green mora eel out in the open on the sand, it was great to watch it swim the 20 feet to his hole.


In the evenings we would enjoy the sunset and watch the Pelicans dive for fish. They are such a big bird to watch them tuck, dive and literally crach into the water is great....they come up with a fish just about every time. The friget birds are beutiful to watch them soar so effortlessly. They glide barley needing to every flap their wings. There are literally hundreads of them. They are very beautiful to watch. We are finallly begining to slow down a little and "smell the roses". The ocean has so much to enjoy.

We continued north again fighting 20 to 35 knot winds and made it to Bahia Muertos (Bay of the Dead). The winds blew like crazy for the next two days. We had to stay in Muertos and wait for a better weather window. This made Sharon quite impatient. We did want to get to La Paz for Christmas....and it was starting to look like we were going to be stuck in the "Bay of the Dead"! Sharon was home sick enough not being home with her family for Christmas. Being stuck were there were no phones to call home was an awful thought. On December 23rd the we got up at 4:00am and the winds were back down to 10 to 15 knots...we immedately pulled anchor and headed for La Paz. It was a long windy sail, but we got our Christmas present, we made it to La Paz!

We spent Christmas Eve wondering through La Paz it was great. The streets were full of everybody running around doing their last minute Christmas shopping, just like home! We got together with other boaters Christmas Eve for Christmas Carols and a "White Elephant" gift exchange. Christmas Day we joined a big group of boaters (28 different boats, over 50 people, and a bunch of kids) and took over an old shut down hotel. We had a huge potluck BBQ. Roasted up several turkeys and a pig. It help make the holiday more festive to share it with others. We called home and wished everyone a "Very Merry Christmas".

We headed out of La Paz toward Isla Espiritu Santo for New Years 1999. Amazing...one year until the new century! Where will be then???

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