It Only Took 21 Years...

Alice has made her home in Indio for the last 21 years, but had never visited Joshua Tree National Park, just a short drive east of there. Since it is Springtime and the flowers should be blooming Bill decided to take her there last weekend while we were home. It was a gorgeous day and we found a multitude of photo opps, from rocks, to trees, to wildflowers and some cactus. Unfortunately, we were early for the cholla blooms and late for the Joshua trees, but nonetheless it was a great little one day jaunt into familiar territory for Bill who was BORN in Indio and an eyeopener for Alice, shown standing near a cholla- That is all you want to do, as these cacti are also called jumping cactus, which embed their barbed thorns in flesh that even just brushes them briefly! Bill was dwarfed by one of the rock formations...

Grumpy Arrives~

Tuesday, April 8 marked two arrivals: we returned to Grey Wolf from California and Barry and Cindy crossed over the Sea of Cortez and arrived at the Santa Rosalia Marina in time to get situated before dark- see above photo. They had smooth water at the beginning and end of the 75+ mile trip, but got rocked and socked out in the middle with 20 knot winds and seas of 3-6 feet! Now that is nothing compared to what one could encounter, but was definitely not to Cindy's liking... she being used to being out on sailboats on lakes! It sure will be neat to have their company for the next four weeks. Once we have provisioned and have calm weather we will head down to Bahia Concepcion and enjoy the anchoring out lifestyle for a while.

A Fast Trip to Fresno

We took Grey Wolf back to the Santa Rosalia marina the end of March and made a very fast one week turnaround to San Diego, Indio, Fresno, Indio, and San Diego again! We bought boat supplies, saw family, Alice went to the doctor for her aching joints, and the main purpose was to get Bill to the dentist to start an implant since he had lost a crown in February. Our son-in-law Rod began the implant procedure with a marvelously painless first procedure. Coincidentally, the night before was our grandson Blake's Eagle Court of Honor, shown above. We enjoyed a too short visit with Rod and Alison's family and we look forward to seeing them again this summer.On the San Diego front, Eric and Arlene will move this June to Indio where she hopes to get a position with Juvenile Hall so Eric can work on finishing his degree. Owen and Melinda have rented a cute little home not far from the apts. she has been managing so she can concentrate on her career as a hair stylist. Lots of changes this year!

Sealife and Other Interesting Sights

We spent a wonderful month on anchor in Bahia Concepcion. Some days were clear and windy, others were overcast and calm, and the last week was cranking up to 90 degrees every day with LOW humidity- a miracle by Baja standards. Alice decided it was time to work on her tan and managed to get burned instead... when will she ever learn? We have gone out in our dinghy a few times and have drooled over the many kayaks we saw crisscrossing the bay. We are getting closer to deciding to buy one- a two seater, we think, instead of two singles! That way when Alice gets tired Bill can just bring her on home~ HA. There are numerous areas for snorkeling or diving and that is next on our agenda, once the water warms up! Barry and Cindy are due to join us next week and go anchorage hopping for about a month. Shown above is a small ray Alice shot in shallow water. Also shown above is a bottom cleaner... well, Capt. Bill as he was cleaning the bottom of Grey Wolf one day!

A Close Call for Bill's Brother

Bill's brother Barry lives on his boat in San Carlos- a few hours south of the Arizona border. A few weeks ago he had a restless night, and later wrote Bill that he felt a 'heaviness in his chest'. Bill advised him to go to a local doctor right away. That doctor indicated that he needed to lose weight, eat right, stop depending on Zantac, etc. Wisely, he decided to go to California for a thorough check-up with his regular doctor. A week ago he saw the doctor who told him he was having a heart attack RIGHT THEN... needless to say, they hospitalized him and wound up installing three stents to solve the problem! He is now back on his boat and is looking at some drastic changes in his lifestyle in order to reverse the heart problem. Fortunately, he did not have any permanent damage to the heart itself. It is scary to think of what would have happened if he had not gone to his doctor, living alone like he does. Well, Ace is there, but I don't think his dog training lessons included CPR! Photo shows Barry with girlfriend Cindy on his boat.

Oh Boy, Not Again!

I am sitting at the breakfast table in Indio! Wednesday morning Bill turned on our water maker on the boat since we were on anchor and needed to replenish our tank. About three hours later he raised the hatch door to turn it off and was greeted with water squirting everywhere! After emptying out all the soggy items we had stored nearby he had me turn it back on- briefly- while he watched for the source of the leak. It turned out that the salt water under pressure had pitted the brass head of the pump and finally a pin point hole had broken through. We returned to Santa Rosalia on Thursday, regrouped, packed a few things and headed north in our truck, carting the broken water maker pump. We arrived in San Diego early Friday morning and took our sick baby in for inspection, only to be told that it was a goner. Fortunately, the store had a used pump in excellent condition for half the money of a new one! We came on home to rest and check on the house and the mail. Now we are getting ready to head south yet again. We should be back on anchor by the end of this coming week, right where I took the photo of a neighbor's sailboat, shown above.

And Away We Go Again!

After four round trips from Santa Rosalia to California we are ready to leave again- this time to spend Spring on the Sea of Cortez! One of the pieces of new equipment Bill added is featured above (self-portrait of Bill...) - it is a combination of radar, GPS, fish finder and depth finder. He also installed a new auto pilot, so now we have back-ups for all of our electronics. With new deck paint in place we are ready to hang out in all the remote anchorages we love so much. Our first stop will be Bahia Concepcion where there are numerous anchorages. We hope that Bill's brother, Barry, will catch up with us there in about a month. It has been almost a year since we were together. By the time summer arrives we should be well-rested and tanned! Then we will head home to escape the intense heat of summer down here ~

...And a Giant Step Back...

After waiting and waiting for the depth sounder to be shipped we decided to return to Baja California and head back to San Diego and Indio to regroup. Bill had plenty of time to evaluate our equipment and the potential for major problems as we traveled further south. SO, we retraced our steps all the way to Santa Rosalia in Baja California South. We had some good weather and some irritating weather, but still nothing like the "Ugly Trip"... We stopped in La Paz for three days and anchored out the rest of the time, in spite of the fact that anchoring without the depth sounder was hectic and nerve-wracking. Fortunately, everywhere we anchored we had been at least once before so we had some idea of what to expect. We pulled back into the Singlar Marina and were surprised to find that there were only three boats there including us! A couple of days later we boarded a bus and rode the 15 hour trip to Tijuana. Thanks to Melinda and Arlene we were picked up and then brought to our very doorstep in Indio. Months of mail awaited us and there were bills to pay and tax data to organize, not to mention obtaining the supplies Bill needed to begin our reorganization of the equipment on Grey Wolf. Alice has been home two weeks and poor Bill has made a round trip plus another trip south to the boat where he is now working. It looks like Central America will be on our agenda for the fall of this year, not this spring.

La Paz- Our Home Port?

We just keep coming back to Marina Costa Baja in La Paz, shown above. When we did not receive the depth sounder in a timely manner, we decided it would be better to return to the Baja and do some other refits as well before taking on the major venture of traveling to Central America. So after 12 days in Manzanillo we turned Grey Wolf north again and retraced our steps to Banderas Bay, then 45 hours across the ocean to Los Frailles and Los Muertos. We arrived in La Paz on January 17 and plan to be here three days before taking about a week to move north to Santa Rosalia where we will leave the boat. We will do our taxes and purchase needed supplies and equipment before returning. Bill's brother, Barry, has decided to pull out of San Carlos on his boat this February and hopes to meet up with us for a while in the Sea of Cortez. We have not seen him for the better part of a year now, so that will be fun.

On Hold In Manzanillo

This seems to be our time to have problems with our equipment! When we arrived in Puerto Vallarta our depth sounder was acting up. Now it will only stay on for five minutes and then it cuts out. SO, arriving here in Manzanillo we were forced to anchor deep- turned out to be in 41 feet of water. We like 25 feet but did not dare move in toward shore without a working depth sounder. Bill has ordered a new one through a dealer in San Diego and it will arrive some time after January 8, we hope! We have been hanging out on the boat~ watching TV, working on the computer, sewing, and reading. This bay is popular and feels like a mini-Cabo. There are jet skiers, wakeboarders, banana boaters, kayakers, etc. aplenty every afternoon. Of course, this is still vacation time down here, so by next week it will probably quiet down! The above photo shows Playa Miramar- our view from the boat when pointing west... The top photo is Marina Las Hadas and the surrounding community where we went to land our dinghy and catch a bus into town~ so white and so pretty! Note boats in the lower right-hand corner behind the seawall.