We were on our way from Bahia Tortuga to Asuncion when we seen a familiar mast in the distance. Could it be Toy Box? They had left the night before us to hit a surf spot before going on to Asuncion. As we inched closer we could see through the binoculars it was them. Do you know what it is when two sailboats under sail are traveling in the same direction? A RACE! We have an advantage because we sail just a tiny bit faster then Toy Box. We inch closer and closer. Their sails are giving away the fact they are loosing wind as they keep dropping. And then all of a sudden out comes a bright blue and white sail. THEY RELEASED THEIR SPINNAKER! Will we catch them? Will they pull away? Minutes tick by and we can see that they are keeping the distance between us. Not pulling away but they did speed up. We don’t have a working spinnaker so we have to make due with the sails we do have. Trimming and trimming trying to gain just a tiny bit of speed. Slowly but surely we quietly sneak up on them. The winds shift enough they put the spinnaker away and now we are side by side. Close enough to exchange friendly race lingo and of course take pictures. It takes forever to pull in front of them but we finally do and the race continues through out the day. The winds completely die and we are both forced to motor and that is where we pull away. See you in Asuncion!
We continue to motor and sail off and on through out the day. The sun continued to warm the air. We see our first turtle and I hear they like warmer water and palm trees. We dance and sing and carry on the entire day.
Hours later we entered Asuncion Bay in the dark. In the air was the sweet scent of flowers and dirt. Not dust and desert but soil. It is crazy that I can smell flowers and dirt in the dark but can’t tell you how far away a light is. We anchor in front of the orange hotel that is lit up by a street light just off what we thought was the pier. It is hard when it is dark. That “pier” actually ended up being lights behind the Asuncion sign. The beach is white sand and we can almost see our anchor on the sea floor. There are sealions but they are shy and dive from our flash light. We go to bed and the bay is calm. Thank goodness. I didn’t think I could take another rock and roll night.
The next morning I go to the bow holding my coffee cup and take a look around. The water is clear and aqua marine. It touches a white sand beach that is lined with colorful houses and clusters of colorful flowers. I did smell FLOWERS! I want to go to land and check out this place. It seems different then what we’ve seen. It feels different. I believe we have crossed into another climate. It looks like Toy Box made it in some time last night. As I sit on the bow I hear a snort below me. I look down and there she is. She sees me watching her and she dives down our anchor line wraps her flippers around the chain and begins spinning around the chain a few times. She surfaces and snorts at me and then dives again. This time she swims around the anchor on her way up she wraps her flippers around the chain and begins chewing and pulling on the snubber lines. She spins gracefully around them again. Over and over she surfaces, looks at me, snorts, swims around and then dives down and begins her routine all over again. Every morning. She would see me on the bow swim over and continue her dance. What a fascinating interaction.
We unloaded the dinghy and headed into shore. We see that Toy Box was able to beach over by the bright orange hotel so that is where we head. There is a little surf break but we were about to maneuver through it without tipping the dinghy and the boys ran out to help us pull it up. I was grateful for that because the dinghy is just plain heavy. The sand was as soft as it was light. We climb up the stairs that lead to the road and begin our walk into town. We comment on how bright everything is and the flowers. So many flowers! The storm that went through Baja Tortuga had brought rain with it. That rain hit Asuncion and ran down the roads washing some of them out. Men where out with shovels clearing the road ways that had gotten flooded. They greeted us with smiles and waves. We stopped on the street to talk with locals and some Ex Pats told us where the stores were and the restaurant.
The homes and roads creep up the rolling hills of the bay mostly in a grid pattern. Each yard fenced in with flowering trees and flower pots growing between what ever fencing they used. There are three different grocery stores a hardware store and gift shops. There is a gas station at one end of town. At the other end over looking the Pacific Ocean sits Tomas’s restaurant. Which is also his home. He greeted us with a big smile cerveza and wifi password. His wife made up fish tacos and mole sauce and it was finger licking delicious! After lunch we continued on to do our errands. We stopped at all three tiendas and found enough provisions to get to Cabo. The boys helped us with a jerry can of diesel as they had access to a car. We made plans for dinner which didn’t materialize as my guts reminded me I ate something I shouldn’t have. Which is a big bummer. We let them take movies off our hard drive and said our goodbyes.
We left the next morning. From Asuncion to Magdalena Bay there are a handful of Bays that we can slip into doing day hops. But that day we sailed off our anchor out into the blue averaging 6-7 knots on a very comfortable beam reach. The weather was predicted to stay this way for days. It was so wonderful that we decided to by pass each bay and continue on to Magdalena. This would be a 2 day sail. Sometime in the night the wind shifted as it sometimes does which put us in a predicament. Now instead of sailing along gracefully we now rose and fell with the swell from the North West and sloshed around from the wind waves from the North East. We were in what they call a washing machine. Swish swash wallowing back and forth and there was nothing we did that would alleviate this. We hung on through the night. We had too. Much safer out there then trying to go into an unknown bay in the middle of the night. We didn’t feel scared. We didn’t even feel unsafe. We were uncomfortable.
As the sun rose the wind staid constant and the seas calmed to a regular pattern. We motored on and on with the entrance to Magdalena Bay in site. One thing we were missing though where the dolphin. There hadn’t been any for over 24 hours which was unusual for us on this trip. We were worried that maybe this was it. That we wouldn’t be seeing them as often. As evening approached we passed a Sea Lion or Seal that looked right at us and began swimming toward the back of our boat. It was crazy how fast he could swim. We were afraid he was going after Sam’s fishing pole so he pulled it in. But the animal kept swimming behind us and started surfing the waves! We hadn’t seen that before and found it hilarious. He looked like he was having a great time. Not long after we seen a whale spout off on the horizon in front of us. A few hours later as the sun was setting we could hear the whale, or a different one, breaching. It would rise up out of the water and land several times. We were so excited to see this spectacular show. One of the bays we passed was a park where the whales are known to stop during their migration. We were slightly afraid that maybe we would miss the chance to see them.
After trying to nap off and on through out the day we entered the night with calmer seas. But tired. we are averaging 3-4 knots now which is still acceptable and with the calm seas maybe it wont be so bad of a night. Around 10 pm I was unable to sleep and the winds had died I took watch and tried to give Sam some sleep. I can usually go until 3 even if I start early but this night I couldn’t. We ended up taking 1-2 hour watches and just cat napping. The wind was just giving puffs here and there. The boat was rocking and making banging noises because there wasn’t enough wind to keep the sails full all the time. At one point Sam set a 20 minute alarm because I was snoring and he didn’t want to wake me so he cat napped for his shift. We were so tired and so dark. There was no moon. We just tried to get some rest until we felt we could stay awake long enough to run the motor. We continued to creep along at 2-3 knots. After Sam let me sleep I took watch again around 3. The stars were brilliant and some bright meteors flew by. I put on my headphones and danced in the cockpit but I was pretty sure I was sleep dancing.
As the sun rose the seas were calm yet again. A beautiful morning. A large pod of dolphins great us. Yay! we still get to see dolphins! As we approach Magdalena bay with the sun on our faces we notice a dark dense patch of nothing else then FOG! Thick dense fog. You have got to be kidding me right now! At this point I think the trip is over. We will never find sun. We will always be cold. I got very pouty. We hit the fog and our beautiful morning turns into a scene from a scary movie. Creeping through the fog. Our motor bubbling along. Motors of pangas in the distance. You can’t see land or water or other boats. We are afraid we will hit a whale. How will we even know one is in our way? The water is as flat as a mirror. It’s stunning in a creepy kind of way. Eerie. We follow our instruments and continue in. When we are sure we have made it to our destination the fog breaks for just a second and we see we are safe. We anchor. We sit in silence for a bit and then quietly clean up. Exhausted, we nap. When we wake the fog has lifted and the sun is shining on a sleepy little fishing town. We check our boat and go back to sleep. We will explore in the morning.