Steve and Kathie Smith update
Steve and Kathie Smith

Hello everyone. Well, it's the day before Thanksgiving, and we're still here in Ensenada. It's not that we haven't tried to get out, in fact we got a hundred miles south to Isla San Martin, but then had to come back.

We had a pretty uneventful run down the California coast. We left Vallejo on August 7th, and got as far as Half Moon Bay, stayed there for couple of days, then on to Monterey. I have a friend who lives there, so we visited there for another five days. Then anchored out in San Simeon Bay for a night then on to Morro Bay.

On our way to Morro Bay, we spotted a bunch of whale spouts ahead of us. We figured it was a pod traveling, but they stayed where they were. We finally changed course to go around them and spotted something red in the water. We went back around to see what it was, and it turned out to be krill. The whales were blowing bubbles to make a krill ball, then feeding on it. What an awesome sight, something we will never forget.

The people at Morro Bay Yacht Club are very nice. We felt really at home there for our 5 day stay. They invited us to a BBQ on Wednesday, and to a happy hour on Friday. We also have friends in Shell Beach, so we got to visit with them also.

The weather around Point Conception wasn't very good, so we were waiting for a window of better weather. We finally moved on to Port San Luis, so we could get a head start once the weather sounded better. The next day sounded the best in several, and it also sounded like it was going to get worse again later in the week, so we left at 11:00 p.m. that night. I don't like Point Conception. This was my second trip around it, and I was seasick both times. Steve was OK though, and took pity on me and took the helm from 3:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m.

Once we got into the Channel Islands it, it was great. The weather was warm, lots of sunshine and calm seas. (It had been chilly and overcast all the way down the coast.) We anchored on the ocean side of Santa Cruz Island for the night, then on to Catalina. We stayed in Two Harbors for a week, then Avalon for a couple of days, then went to Long Beach to escape the Labor Day weekend on the island.

While we were in Long Beach, we had the electrical system looked at; it just didn't seem right. That turned into a real ordeal, and a lot of work had been done, but we also upgraded to a 50 amp system. Went back to Catalina to meet the Alacosta divers for some much needed head soaking. We then went to White's Landing, for some more diving. Our next destination was Long Beach again. I had a Dr. appointment and there needed to be some fixes on the electrical work that had been done.

>From Long Beach we went to San Diego, and set up connections with Downwind Marine for mail and stuff to be sent to us. There was a lot of naval activity there, so as we left we played tag with some Navy ships. There were actually very nice, and wanted to let us know about some course changes they were making that would look like they were going to run us down if we didn't know about them.

The trip to in Ensenada was uneventful, just the usual dolphins in our bow wake. We got here on Oct. 4th and, and they took the boat out the water on the fifth. We were in the yard for about six weeks while they worked on the boat, and I made two trips to the Bay Area. We had the bottom painted, got a new holding tank for the heads put in, through-hulls changed, the rudder posts repaired, and the engines checked because there were vibrating.

My cousin Dan joined us to help make the trip to La Paz. We left Ensenada on November 15th,at about 11 AM. We cruised to Puerto San Tomas where we anchored for the night. There was a lot of kelp in the Bay and we weren't sure if we were caught in the kelp or really anchored, so we did anchor watches of two hours each all night I had the last watch and woke the guys up at six. We ate breakfast and left at about 7:00 a.m.. Outside the bay we had problems with the auto-pilot. We tried for one-and-a-half hours to get it working, and finally decided to head back to Ensenada. We tried the auto-pilot one more time and lo and behold, it worked. So we turned around again and headed south to Isla San Martin. Isla San Martin is a beautiful little island with a nice bay on the southeast side. We got there about 4:00 in the afternoon, the bay had a good bottom and we anchored in about 20 ft. of water. That night after dinner we were watching a dvd when all the ac electrical power went out. We decided we were too tired to try and fix it that night, so we went to bed. The next day, the guys worked on the electrical all day but couldn't get it running. Since we had a freezer full of food, we decided to head back to Ensenada, and, since it was already Saturday, and Baja Naval would be closed until Monday morning, we decided not to go back until Sunday night. Isla San Martin is where lobster fisherman keep their catch, so Saturday we traded them canned goods for lobsters. For about $15 worth of goods we got five lobsters, and ate 4 of them for dinner. We saved the fifth for lobster tacos on Sunday. Sunday afternoon, we decided we hadn't eaten enough lobster, so we got nine more for about $20 worth of trade goods We had lobster dinner again Sunday night. We brought six lobsters back with us for dinner Monday night in Ensenada with Dan's wife and son. In all, we had 15 meals of lobster for $35 worth of Spam, cokes and canned veges, If you like lobster, life is good!

Well, they may have to pull the boat out of the water again, they took the boat out again for a test drive this morning, and the vibration is still there, and now they think it is props, cutlass bearings or the shafts. We're seeing how long it will take and when they will start. They are also still diagnosing the generator. It looks like we'll be at Dan and Barb's tomorrow for dinner, then who knows when the adventure will continue. At least Ensenada is a good place to be, I just wish we were farther down the road.