Ensenada de Los Muertos

November 13, 2011

..is poorly named. We arrived here last night in a near gale. The wind and waves were all coming from the one direction in which this precious little harbor is unprotected. We set to making the most basic dinner (tater tots and bowls o’ soup) in gut churning swell, Vick and I alternating in and out of the galley as the other got too nauseous to continue.

By the time dinner was ready I had put together our exit strategy. We would nap for a few hours and then run before the weather all the way up to La Paz. We hoped to arrive at the Canal San Lorenzo in time for the flood tide to carry us through. We ate dinner and hastily got the kids into their berths for bed. We ship shaped and got ready to nap and just as I was dozing off, the swell abated and wind died. As my eyelids finally collapsed under the weight of the day’s exertions I said “We’ll stay tonight.”

The next thing I knew it was morning and I was somehow in my own berth again. The cove (ensenada) is gorgeous and there were practically no boats remaining, giving us a sense of belonging. (We had arrived to about 30something sailboats.)

We left Convivia early and headed to the beach to scope out the two local restaurants for lunch. We had a great time observing the reef that separated the two, as we hovered over the nearly transparent water. The second restaurant was way to glitzy for our cruiser’s budget, and we opted to leave before even checking the menus. Stay tuned for a picture or two. On our way out I learned that the cruisers behind us were informed that “this is a private party” and politely asked to leave.

After an acceptable, but not exceptional lunch we retreated to the beach for some colder than expected snorkling. There we ran into some long estranged friends of our cruising buddies on Windara. We had a nice time chatting with them before returning to Convivia for “no-nap.”

No-Nap is one of my all time favorite institutions. As Ruby got to the age where naps were generally considered optional, I, with atypically selfish pragmatism, came up with this set of rules and dubbed it ‘no-nap’
* You can do anything you want (within the normal boundaries of acceptable behavior)
* But I should not know that you are awake
* If I find out that you are awake, you will be put to real-nap

It works passably well after about 10 minutes of calibration, water bottle re-fills, reminders, and book/workbook fetching.

So, the kids had no-nap and Vick and I enjoyed our coffee, ebooks, and TJs peanut butter cups (smuggled these many miles from Emeryville).

Vick is now engaged in making two types of bread (from scratch of course) and a black bean soup (also from scratch). Life is still good, and we are still loving it!

1 comment

  1. Comment by Katja Svendsen

    Katja Svendsen November 14, 2011 at 9:00 pm

    Hello again,
    You are in one of my favorite spots (some people call it Bahia de los Suenos.) I’ve seen it go from fisherman bringing tuna right on the beach and we bbq’d it right then and there to rich millionares building huge houses. Right around the corner is La Ventana, famous windsurfing spot where I have gone for many years with my parents. That reef you talked about is a beautiful place to snorkel, and there is an old hotel that is abandoned on the point, I guess that would be north from you? I don’t know if you can walk to it, but if you can it’s out of this world. Also, there is a beautiful white sand beach by an old lighthouse and from what I remember you can climb up in it. The winds always come up every day around noon and quit around sunset at La Ventana. I smiled to myself when I read about the gale, it gets really crazy around that whole area when the winds come and there is big swell. Im glad to hear you are there and it was great to read about “no-nap.” Thank you. Sounds like all of you are right where you need to be. Happy sailing. PS, keep an eye out on the way up to La Paz for whale sharks, they hang out around there. Katja Svendsen (Ranger 33)

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