Alaska so far

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We're getting settled into Alaska. The first month here, we stayed in a log house in the hills above Anchorage. A couple of weeks ago we moved over to Girdwood, a little ski village nestled among the mountains along Turnagain Arm, about 40 minutes from Anchorage. For much of April we still had snow on the ground but that is all gone now. I haven't spent a lot of time in this part of Alaska and I am amazed at how much sunshine we have had. Most of my time in Alaska has been spent in South East Alaska which has weather much like the Pacific Northwest. The long days are the best part of summers in Alaska. Outings after work can easily go until 10pm, at which point you are surprised it's nearly bedtime. Of course when you finally make it to bed it's hard to fall asleep with the sun streaming in.

Close Encounters

We're still in Denver enjoying the comforts of living on shore. Last week we took a little trip up to South Dakota to see "the heads" and some amazing wildlife. On our way back we nearly had a close encounter of a third kind in Wyoming...

Buffalo in Custer State Park

Devil's Tower (featured in the movie: Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1977)

Prayer-flags at Devil's Tower

Mount Rushmore at night

At Bear Country

From the Ocean to the Prairies

After over a week on the road we just made it to our destination of Denver, Colorado where we are visiting with Mike's family. 

We've been camping out of our mini van, for which Mike built a platform-bed after removing the two rows of back seats. All of our clothes and most gear is stored in under-bed storage bins below the platform. Even my inflatable kayak is under there! 

We visited Utah's national parks from Arches to Zion, but the highlight so far was a 10 mile paddle down the Colorado River from below the Glen Canyon dam to Lees Ferry (where the Grand Canyon begins). 

On a side note, my folks are still in Mexico on their sailboat where they just finished the fifth installment of their TV documentary series Travel Secrets Mexico. The episode about La Paz is currently airing on TV or you can watch it (and all other episodes) here.

Cooking dinner

Kayak Storage

Bryce Canyon National Park

Raven

Picking apples in Fruita

Capitol Reef National Park

Rocky Mountains

Aspen

Even more photos...

Catalina Island

We've been settling back into life in the United States. Slowly. We bought a car, have been visiting with friends and family and are getting our affairs back in order. Life in the US is a bit different than living in Mexico. Most notably: it is expensive!!

But we can't neglect our boat so when Mike's parents came to visit we headed out to Catalina Island for four nights. It's just a quick overnight sail of about 70 miles from San Diego and we had to motor the entire way there since the wind was coming (of course) right on the nose. But that made for a nice downwind run on the way back.

I hadn't been to Catalina since about 1990 and not much has changed. It was fairly crowded and a mooring costs around $35 per night. We anchored one night but had to do so pretty close to shore since it gets deep fast. The water was incredibly clear and we even braved the super-cold water to see Leopard sharks, garibaldi, bat rays and beautiful kelp forests. What a change from Mexico.


Zoom out to see entire route. Markers are clickable. View Catalina Trip August 2013 in a larger map

Avalon

Beautiful tile-work everywhere.

The dinghy dock in Avalon

Up the mast in Isthmus Cove

Isthmus Cove

Anchored in Catalina Harbor

Baja Bash Wrap-Up

We have completed the dreaded Baja Bash! I have been agonizing over this trip for weeks and it turns out that by going at the right time of year and with good weather windows, it doesn't really have to be much of a bash at all. We actually had a rather good time except for the fact that it was quite chilly at night (anything below 70 feels like the dead of winter now) and we had to motor the entire time.

We left Turtle Bay three days ago in the evening with a very short weather window to go to Ensenada. The next opportunity to make the trip north was at least a week away and we were not about to get pooped on for another week - it seems that Turtle Bay's bird population greatly outnumbers its human population and they are all looking for a place to s(h)it.

According to stormsurf the wind would not start to pick up for a couple of days. And even then nothing over 11 knots. We especially needed very light winds for the first part of the passage as we would be passing several capes and a couple of channels, one of which is nicknamed the "washing machine".

Punta Eugenia and Canal de Dewey slowed our speed to nearly 3 knots due to a falling tide. We made it across the washing machine (Canal de Keller) with just a gentle corkscrew motion and when we reached the dreaded Punta Norte we had mirror calm seas. The last hurdle was Bahia Vizcaino of which the author of The Baja Bash has this to say: "Maybe you'll get lucky on your crossing and find calm conditions but its never happened to me." Mind you this is not a small bay and reading this made me nervous. We had calm seas for the entire 100 miles!

On our last full day at sea the wind picked up in the afternoon and blew around 10-12 knots on the bow most of the night. Couple that with a 6 foot falling tide (which pushed us south) and we were only making 3.5 knots. Now it's 6am, we're making an easy 5 knots on calm seas and are less than 20 miles from Ensenada where we will check out of Mexico and wait for another weather window to make the short hop to San Diego. There we will look for jobs and try to sell Camille.

Not that we're experts now but our advice for anyone yet to make the Bash: wait until July, pick good weather windows and get the book* - it has great advice on timing and lots of anchorage options in case the weather report was a little off. Leaving right after a hurricane was a bit scary but it gave us following seas for the first half of our journey.

* we were in no way compensated for this post. We merely think that our trip would not have gone as smoothly without the book or the weather-website.

Checking for tangled seaweed in Turtle Bay

Getting fuel in Turtle Bay

Have I mentioned that it has gotten progressively colder?!! 

The bustling metropolis of Turtle Bay

The reason we didn't want to stay longer 

Turtle Bay fuel and dinghy dock

"Bashing" up the Baja

What kind of sea turtle? We saw lots of these. Much smaller than the ones further south.

Fin Whale? Blue Whale? Much bigger than humpies or greys

Our escort into Ensenada

The sun came out for our arrival. We had cloudy skies the entire Bash so it was a welcome sight.