Logbook and Photos

Spring 2003 – Update from the Richards Family Onboard the Good Ship TIOGA

Hola everyone.  This update comes from La Paz, Baha California South in Mexico, where we are all well and having fun.  We hope it finds you all in good health!  We are now officially cruising in the Sea of Cortez, where spring is just arriving.  Our strategy of going farther south for the “winter” months has worked well as we have enjoyed warm sunshine almost daily.  Now, as we continue to head north the weather improves daily, though we are told it will really begin to cook here as summer rolls in.  And so the news for us is that we have decided to put Tioga in dry-storage here in Mexico for most of July, August and September and visit back home and then continue our adventure next fall.  We’ll escape the heat down here that us prairie folk would probably find very uncomfortable and hopefully enjoy a wonderful Canadian summer! 

We sure enjoy the e-mails we get from many of you.  It’s apparent how busy life is with everyone, whether it’s banging away at work, getting the kids schooled and families fed, keeping the home running smoothly, managing after school and weekend activities, renovations, etc. etc.   Our life too is very busy with a lot of the same issues.  We continue to find ourselves feeling more and more adjusted to cruising life.  Some routine is essential and we are doing well as a result.  When we are not on the move, we keep a regular 5 days-a-week school schedule from about 8:45 to 12:30 complete with scheduled classes and breaks.  Sheila does the majority of the teaching and Chris uses this time to get the regular and preventive maintenance and boat chores done.  Occasionally, roles are switched and the boys enjoy a substitute teacher, Mr. Krupp (or something like that) they call him.   Everyone has thrived with this structure as there is always an end in sight and weekends are as important as ever!   We enjoy meeting and spending time with other cruisers, especially those with families, as they seem to relate better to the effort it takes to cruise with a family.   It’s easy to keep in touch with the cruising community, particularly via two-way radio, whether the short-range VHF or the long-range SSB/Ham radio.  Between the two, it is easy to find out weather conditions and forecasts, where to locate a part or another boat, or where there’s a good restaurant to try.   And everyone is so willing to help out. 

In our last update, we had recently arrived in Banderas Bay area and were wishing you all Merry Christmas from Nuevo/Puerto Vallarta.  Since then, we have covered very little distance, which has allowed us the opportunity to experience new places for greater lengths of time.  Our stay at Paradise Village Marina in Nuevo Vallarta was longer than originally planned but it was a rather luxurious place to be held captive!  We managed numerous day trips to local villages, spent time with friends, enjoyed the pools and, with our boat safely at a dock, we managed two inland trips via the magnificent bus system in Mexico.  The first trip was three days to Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city with 6 million people and our second trip was a two-day tour to the city of Tepic, the capital of the state of Nayarit. In early February, we finally left Banderas Bay and sailed about 150 miles south to Tenacatita Bay, about 50km north of the city of Manzanillo.  This large protected bay filled with sea life, crystal clear water and palm tree-lined beaches turned out to be Tioga’s most southerly destination for this cruising season. Tenacatita had lots to offer and we ended up spending over 3 weeks anchored there enjoying the snorkeling, swimming, hiking, games on the beach, surfing and crocodiles.   Yes, crocodiles with huge mouths and teeth live in one of the lagoons.   As we left Tenacatita, with the Sea of Cortez as our destination, Tioga headed north for the first time in eight months.  The sailing was no longer the nice down wind sailing with the wind and waves astern; it was now beating north with Tioga’s nose often hard on the wind.  Many day sails with various overnight stops brought us back north to Mazatlan by mid March.  We had a great couple of weeks in Mazatlan but were anxious to get into the Sea.   And so, after a two-day passage across the Sea of Cortez to the Baha Peninsula, we finally arrived in La Paz in early April.   

Now that we are in the protected Sea of Cortez, we no longer have to contend with the ocean surf as we did down south – which is nice in certain ways.  One of them you may find an interesting story.  Wherever the raw Pacific Ocean meets the land and relentlessly pounds pebbles into sand, landing a dinghy (our ship-to-shore inflatable boat) on a beach gracefully through the breaking surf is quite an art … with a touch of science.  Picture this: in a well-executed landing, one approaches the surf line, shoulder checks to see whether the current set of waves is building or subsiding (waiting for the latter), then accelerates the dinghy to sit on the back of a particular wave just behind the breaking crest, and rides it all the way to shore.   When the dinghy touches sand in all the froth, one leaps out and drags the dinghy up the beach, hopefully with the help of dinghy wheels, and before the next wave breaks on top of you!  That’s the theory, anyhow.  Put theory into practice enough times and something is bound to go wrong.  Our normal dinghy landing technique went amiss one morning (Joel’s Birthday) at La Manzanilla, a small village in Bahia Tenacatita.  We were motoring towards the beach slowly, trying to detect the rhythm and magnitude of the current wave train before accelerating towards shore on the back of a targeted wave.   We decided to let an approaching larger wave pass underneath us, when all of a sudden the wave began to swell up much sooner than its predecessors.  In a heartbeat it crested and we were caught inside the surf line and began rapidly surfing down the forward face of this ornery wave.  In the second heartbeat, the nose of the dinghy must have hit the sandy bottom as all four of us were tossed perhaps 20’ each and the dinghy did a complete 360 degree flip, end over end, motor still running and propeller turning.  In the third heartbeat, the dinghy landed upright again pointed at the beach. While Chris killed the motor and wrestled the dinghy through the next breaking wave the rest of us all began grabbing our floating belongings and hauling them to shore.   We were so fortunate as no one was hurt, the dinghy was unscathed and the motor didn’t get dunked and potentially ruined.   We were shaken but grateful to all be all right.  How’s that for trying to go to town!!

Anyway, we don’t want this update to go on too long.  We wish you all a pleasant spring and look forward to seeing you this summer! 

Until then, Adios 

     Chris, Sheila, Joel & Gerrit

            s/v TIOGA

April 21, 2003

     La Paz, Baha California South, Mexico