Logbook and Photos

2003 Summer Update from the Richards Family Aboard the Motor Home TIOGA II!

Hello again everyone! As we write this update, we are currently in good health and great spirits in the college town of Bozeman, Montana after recently experiencing the majesty of Arizona's Grand Canyon, hiking among the hoodoos of Utah's Bryce Canyon, swimming in the lakes of Wyoming's Grand Tetons and marveling at her geysers in Yellowstone. Yes, we decided to follow through with our plans to escape the intense summer heat of Mexico and the hurricane season and head back to Canada in a … motor home. It has been and will be a great opportunity to take in some pretty amazing sights that a round-trip through western USA and Canada has to offer and get some visiting in. We expect to arrive in Calgary around July 20th or so.

Our last update had us arriving in Mexico's Sea of Cortez at the beginning of April and that is where we spent April, May and June. We traveled very little covering mainly from La Paz near the southern end of the Baja tip, north to about half way up the Sea on the Baja side, before crossing over to San Carlos on the mainland where we left TIOGA for the summer. In a nutshell, the Sea of Cortez (also called the Gulf of California) is exceptionally beautiful with rugged mountainous terrain surrounding its azure waters and plentiful anchorages. It is also relatively remote with few people. Prior to leaving La Paz we had been warned of this remoteness and advised to stock pile not only food but also cash in small notes as there would be few stores or banks and great difficulty getting change for anything more than the equivalent of $10. With few Mexican villages and towns to explore, we often found ourselves in the company of other cruisers and cruising families we had met along the way and together we beat-the-heat in the water. Collectively, we learned to harvest the sea and dove for clams and scallops and speared fish seeking refuge in sunken wrecks and reefs. Sometimes Joel and Gerrit struggled to surface they were so loaded down with clams! Joel learned to free board, which is basically water skiing on his surfboard! The snorkeling was much better in this crystal clear water, though we often chose to wear full Lycra dive suits, as stinging jellyfish were usually not far away.

La Paz is a great place to visit. It has a huge anchorage area, several modern marinas, complete repair and boat upkeep facilities and the most affordable and best selection of food in Baja. The town was a comfortable balance between tourism and life in the slow lane. It had numerous cultural events and festivals, a couple of which we took in. We had a chance to visit some outlying "colonials" or neighborhoods (dirt-poor but proud), and help out on a "feed-the-children-before-school" program. North of La Paz, in the huge natural anchorage of Puerto Escondido, we attended the 8th annual Loreto Festival, a cruisers' get-together of music, events, crafts and general solidarity. It was four days of great fun and the rendezvous point with the numerous cruising families and friends mentioned above in a spectacular setting with the steep walls of the Sierra de la Giganta mountains rising up on the west of our anchorage. After the festival, we worked our way up the Gulf exploring the many anchorages interdispersed with the colorful towns of Loreto, Mulege and Santa Rosalia, refuges offering lush growth, greenery and towering palms on an otherwise arid coastline. Somewhere in between, the kids finished their school program and then ceremoniously burnt their school workbooks at a beach fire.

Food experiences weren't as varied as the mainland and often we just chose a favorite taco place. But take note: tacos in Mexico are not ground beef with sprinklings of lettuce and cheese. They are masterpieces, each as unique and varied as the people who run the taco stands. Spit-grilled pork (pastor), marinated beef (aracherro), fish (pescado), shrimp (camaron), or BBQ'd beef (carne asada) on a wheat tortilla form the base. Then select your toppings from spicy salsas, pickled onions, guacamole, diced tomatoes, cabbage, and grilled peppers to name just a few. Wash it all down with an ice-cold cerveza or two! And then there was the famous hotdogs of Santa Rosalia, just in front of the historic church…

Santa Rosalia, our most northerly port and just across the gulf from San Carlos, was also the staging ground of the initial logistics required to get a motor home, an idea conceived somewhere in the Sea in someone's cockpit. Near the end of June and just prior to leaving our boat TIOGA safely tied-up in Mexico (hopefully), Chris and a friend traveled north 6 hours by bus to Tucson, Arizona each in search of a suitable motor home to either rent or purchase for resale in October. It was a week of pounding the pavement from RV dealer to suburb homeowner, but they both returned late one night each driving a great, mid-90s unit. Chris had not communicated to Sheila and the boys that it was the model TIOGA by Fleetwood, so what a laugh we all had upon his arrival. TIOGA II (also the name of Joel's model boat) she was immediately named. An RV made great sense. It was an opportunity to get the stuff off the boat we didn't need (like layers and layers of fleece) and to bring back much-needed items - a second chance to get it right you might say! Plus, it's summer accommodations and transportation. Thank you so much to everyone for all the offers of places to stay and cars to drive - hope you have big driveways!

Getting TIOGA (the sailboat) ready to leave her for a few months was a huge task. Basically, we had to remove anything not permanent on deck, wash it and store it down below to protect it from the sun's harsh rays. In doing so, we cleaned and organized every nook and cranny down below and prepared the boat for the next cruising season - the Panama Canal and beyond. It was a lot of work in daytime temperatures exceeding 100 F, but it's all done now and we're looking forward to this next part of our excellent adventure!! We'll be in Calgary, Edmonton and Drayton Valley area for the remainder of July and the better part of August, then out to the west coast for early fall. Looking forward to seeing many of you along the way!

All the best

Chris, Sheila, Joel & Gerrit

M/H TIOGA II

Bozeman, Montana

July 15, 2003