March 2018 – A Year and a Day

Sea Creatures

–by Alma

Arlo holding the flying fish that landed on our deck!

Lots of people think that the ocean is empty except for little goldfish. We haven’t seen any of those, but we have been seeing many other types of sea creatures. Before we left, I was thinking a lot about the places we’d go, and I didn’t think as much about the wildlife we’d see. But there’s a lot of it! On 3/4/18, my half birthday, we anchored at Isla Isabel-Mexico’s Galapagos–so it seemed like an awesome time to write about sea creatures!

We have seen lots of sea mammals, which can be broken up into cetaceans and pinnipeds. Cetaceans are animals like whales and dolphins. Pinnipeds are things like seals, sea lions, and elephant seals. We have seen all of those. We have seen lots of seals and sea lions the whole way, but we only saw elephant seals at San Miguel in the Channel Islands. The beach was covered in them. The males have big inflatable noses and weigh a maximum of 4,500 pounds! We have also seen lots of dolphins.

At one point, we saw them playing under the bow (front) of the boat! There were about a dozen of them for about ten minutes! In Bahia Magdalena, we saw a mother and baby gray whale swimming together. While we were sailing, we saw a humpback whale breech six times, and then a different humpback whale breech nine times. More recently, we saw humpback whales “lobster tailing” or hitting the water with their tails. You could hear a thud a few seconds after because of the distance.

We have also seen turtles. The first day, we just saw one. Then a few days later, we saw a bunch–everywhere you looked. They looked like floating rocks. They were funny. They just sat there paddling every so often. We’ve continued to see sea turtles all along the coast of Mexico.

The thing that we have seen most variety in is sea birds. I will have a list of all of them all later. My favorites were the frigate birds with long forked tails. The males can inflate a big red balloon under their beaks. When they tap their beaks against this “balloon” it makes a vibrating drum sound. We also saw the fluffy frigate bird chicks!

Another thing that we have seen is animals in tide pools, from sea anemones that curl up when you touch them, to crabs, to clams that you dig up with your toes.

We have also seen lots of other miscellaneous sea creatures, like flying fish (one landed on our deck) and rays that jump and splash the surface. Also, we saw little jellyfish that don’t sting and a huge sunfish. Four squids landed on our deck as well! At night, we see bio-luminescent zooplankton. Bio-luminescent zooplankton are microscopic organisms that glow when the water is churned up.

As you can see, the ocean is definitely not empty! It is full of life, and we are seeing so much! Though definitely not all of it.

Birds We’ve Seen:

Frigate birds
Tropic birds
Turns
Pelicans
Cormorants
Guillemots
Shear waters
Osprey
Brown Boobies
Great blue herons
Egrets

Small Spaces

—by Arlo

As the tallest person in the family, I thought that I would write about living in small spaces. One of the biggest differences, between life at home and life on the boat is how all of our living spaces are are so much smaller on the boat.

My sister’s and my cabin, looking foreward

The place where I notice this the most is in the cabin that Alma and I share, the forepeak, at the very front of the boat. Compared to my room at home it is very small, and the floor is only 10 feet square so only one person can do anything at at time. My sister and I have to take turns being in it, and

The same cabin, looking in the other direction

because there is no room for a dresser, all of our clothes are stored in cubbies. But small isn’t all bad—my bunk is not too small, and it is the only place on the boat besides the head (bathroom), that has some privacy. I brought my blanket from home, which is also nice.

Me with a fish that I caught and cooked, you can see the sink in the front and the two kettles in the back, one for saltwater, one for freshwater

Another place where you really notice the size difference is in the kitchen, or galley. In the galley there is a three burner gimbaled stove with an oven, a sink with salt and freshwater pumps, and meager counter space. Under the counter, there are lots of racks of baskets for storing food. Compared to our kitchen at home, it is tiny.

The head, you can see the toilet, sink, and cabinets

The head is the smallest room aboard, maybe an eighth of the size of our bathroom at home. It has a sink, two cupboards, and toilet, which you have to pump to flush. The head is pretty much just a downsized regular bathroom, without a bathtub or shower. All in all, you get used to living in these small spaces, more quickly than one might expect, although I wont be sad to have my bedroom back when we get home.

Across to the Mainland

From: Jason

Our three-day passage from Baja California to mainland Mexico was another turning point: from the cool of the West Coast of Baja, to the deep and humid heat of this coast, from the tans and yellows and reds of the desert peaks, to the green lushness of these high ridges, from longer, harder passages along a remote exposed shore, to smaller hops from anchorage to anchorage, from the megafauna of the Baja Coast, the whales and dolphins, to a teeming sea full of fish and sky full of birds here on the mainland. On the passage across the Sea of Cortez and on down the way to this broad and sandy anchorage at Punta de Mita, we’ve been given light and favorable wind that’s just enough to keep us gliding along comfortably.

We delayed our arrival on the mainland with a stop at the offshore Isla Isabel where hundreds of thousands of Frigate Birds, Blue Footed Boobies, Brown Boobies and Heerman’s Gulls nest on a rugged volcanic rock. The swirling swarm of birds there was overwhelming. The island was a nice transition. It had the rugged remoteness of Baja, with a little of the green of the mainland. (Check out Alma’s post on marine wildlife.)

Today was a rare rest day. A short trip ashore to dip in the surf, a couple of easy fixit projects around the boat here at anchor, some down time in a hammock on deck, in bunks reading and writing below.

An interesting thing about living and traveling on Debonair is the feeling of reassurance we get from the boat in these new and foreign places. In every new place, whether it’s comfortable or more challenging, we have this, our home, to work from, and as we get to know her better, that reassurance grows.

From Punta de Mita we’ll go into La Cruz and a marina to provision and work on some maintenance projects dockside. Then, the coming weeks will bring a handful of new anchorages on the way to Manzanillo. We’ll swim a lot now. The water has gotten warm so even the parents are swimming regularly (Arlo & Alma will swim in anything!). We’ll keep an eye out for new birds wherever we go.

South of the Tropic of Cancer!

We ate breakfast in the cockpit yesterday morning as we rounded Cabo San Lucas’ famous rock arches. After seeing only pangas and the odd tanker for a couple of weeks, we were struck by the hubub of sportfishing boats and other tour boats around us. We rounded the Cape, put our dishes in the sink and trimmed sails to beat the final 10 miles to San Jose del Cabo where we are tied up now. We’ve sailed about 850 miles since we left the US. The boat is as still as a house.

We were glad to have our friend JT aboard for much of the trip down the coast, and it was exciting that Alma and Arlo stood their first watches without us! We anchored in the beautiful Bahia San Quintin, Bahia Tortuga and Bahia Magdalena—in each place we got ashore to to stretch our legs and see the place after nights at sea. Here in San Jose, we were so glad to connect with a former owner of DEBONAIR who rebuilt her in the 90’s after she was hit by a barge. We also been taken out on the town by a former colleague of Jason’s whom we ran into on a few days ago on a beach in the remote Bahia Magdalena.

Arlo and Alma will likely each post over the next couple of days, but for now, I leave you with a few pictures from our voyage south along the coast of Baja California. We’re looking forward to heading to mainland Mexico in a couple days. Thank you all for your kind, funny, thoughtful, encouraging messages, here and by email.

Debonair anchored at Bahia Tortuga

Clamming at San Quintin. So many clams! An hour after this picture we swamped the dinghy in the surf, but saved all the clams for the pot.

A few of the dozens of clams we dug at San Quintin

A view of the Pacific from a hilltop at Bahia Magdalena

Jason’s working on the dinghy mast step here. We’ve repaired a lot of the things in the last couple weeks: the engine gear shift cable (underway), the catches for two cabinets and a drawer, the windvane steering hub mount (underway—Jason had the jigsaw and grinder going while we rolled down 7-8’ seas), the stove fiddles (thank you, JT!), and the dinghy oar leathers, among other things.

Arlo’s first fish, a bonito! So much better than the seagull he caught next on the line 🙁 I promise we won’t post pictures of every fish.

Walking the long way into town at Bahia Tortuga

Dawn outside Bahia Magdalena