Ocean Blue Adventures

The Problem – I needed to renew my Canadian Passport.  To do this, I basically had two options.

1. Take a trip back to Canada & visit the Passport office in Victoria

2. Visit the Canadian Consulate in Cabo San Lucas

I chose option #2, to visit the Canadian Consulate in Cabo San Lucas, which is a 7 hour drive from Puerto Escondido.

With that decision made, we now had to figure a way to get there from here.  Sailing there wasn’t an option as the anchorage there is not very good & the cost of dock space in Cabo is astronomical!  Next up was the bus, which takes about 9 hours & was more expensive than we had expected.  It also didn’t sound very fun.

So what to do?  Well, do what we always do, turn this into an adventure!

It all started by meeting another cruiser here who lived in Cabo for a few years.  He was able to tell us about a place to stay in Cabo for cheap, as well as directions.  Then Pedro arranged for a rental car at an amazing price.  The next day we packed a  few clothes & headed South to Cabo.

We drove for about 4 1/2 hours and arrived in La Paz, where we all agreeded to spend the night.  But first, we visited the local McDonald’s & had our Big Mac fix!  We spent the night at the Marina Hotel, where Joh & Kids enjoyed a night of TV & I enjoyed the real high speed internet.

The next morning we were back on the road again, next destination CABO.  Three hours later we arrived & thanks to our directions we found our hotel within 15 minutes.  The CABO CUSH Hotel offered us a special flat rate of 500 Pesos ($40 CDN).  What a surprise this hotel turned out to be.  It was gorgeous & quaint, a classic courtyard design, they call it a Boutique Hotel.

My next task was to find a photo store that could take my passport photos.  I had passport photos taken in Loreto, but they turned out to be the wrong size.  To my surprise, the photo store was just around the corner from the hotel.  80 Pesos & 1 1/2 hour later I picked up my Canadian passport photos.  With that out of the way, we could now go & check out CABO, which was only a 2 block walk from our hotel.

I have two words for Cabo – Expensive & Crazy!  I will admit that it does have a beautiful beach / coastline, but beyond that it’s like little America,  English is the language spoken & most prices at in USD.  We knew this before coming, and spent the afternoon being “tourists”.  It was a fun time.  We headed back to our hotel, picked up a case of beer & just relaxed.

Dinner that night was fish & scallop tacos with all the fixins, the taco stand was 2 blocks off the strip & thankfully true Mexican.

We were up early the next morning, as we now needed to drive 20 minutes to San Jose Del Cabo, where the Canadian Consulate is located.  The renewal process was simple & we were finished in 1 hour.  Happy that we had completed our mission, we headed back North to La Paz.  There we had to complete our final mission, that being Provisioning.  So we did our rounds at WalMart & SAM’s Club.  At Sams Club, we were able to buy a new underwater digital camera (thanks to Nana & Poppa Trolley).  Now no excuses for no Pics.

We stayed another night at the Marina Hotel & enjoyed SUBWAY, it had been almost 2 years since we had that, of course Johanna did an amazing job of ordering all the ingredients in Spanish.

Finally, the next day we all slept in, then enjoyed a huge Mexical breakfast.  4 1/2 hours later we arrived back to Puerto Escondio, our home for the last few months.  Both Lucy & Ocean Blue II were glad to see us!

The trip was a ton of fun, it felt like a vacation & was nice to be a tourist for a few days.  But as always, we were excited to be back on Ocean Blue.

Back in Loreto we couriered the Official passport package to the Canadian Embassy in Mexico City.  It has since arrived there & if all goes as planned, I should have my new passport in hand in 7 days.

So that is the story of our passport adventure, much more fun than just visiting your local passport office back home

FYI – links to our hotels where we stayed, we recommend them both.

CABO CUSH – Cabo

HOTEL MARINA – La Paz

Finally, the Kids have arrived!  Over the last few days the Kid boats have arrived here in Puerto Escondido.  Today, the kids from 6 boats met up at the Singlar Marina.  The pool welcomed them for most of the day, then once the sunburns kicked in, they headed down to the Yacht Club, where cards became the next pleasure.  After that, the Kids just kind of cruised around the ground, being Kids.  It was so nice to see this, as it’s been a while here in Puerto Escondido.  3 of these boats, including us will be spending the summer in the Sea of Cortez, sadly two are going to be finishing up their trips here in the Sea this month.

As always, it’s amazing to see how all of the Kids get along, boat Kids continue to amaze me, especially this bunch!

In other exciting news – today Johanna & I decided to fix the wood floor on the dinghy, a simple 1 hour fix.  We fixed the floor & cleaned up the dinghy, proud of our work we launched the dinghy back into the water.  Once “Old Blue” was back into the water, she started to take on water (sink)!  So, now we had another problem, major problem.    We took her out of the water again & discovered a tear in the rubber floor.  Again, this is a simple process, but time consuming.  To make a long story-short, we spent most of the day working on the dinghy, the leak is fixed for now.

For those that don’t know about our dinghy “Old Blue”, she is a 23 old inflatable.  One that most people wrote off when we bought Ocean Blue II almost 2 years ago.  She has since served us very well, she is our family car, actually more like a pickup.  We have become very attached to her, so it’s now our duty to keep her going.  With that said, we are on the lookout for a new(er) dinghy, but Old Blue will still be here until we retire her.

I will end our post with some stats., some frugal cruisers find this important, not so much for us on Ocean Blue II, but it has been almost 8 months since we have been on a dock, we guess our next time to dock will be in Santa Rosalia in 2 months from now.

p.s. – still looking for a sponsor on the following – dinghy & underwater camera

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mommies out there!  Here on Ocean Blue we are going to make our Mommy dinner tonight.

Over the last 3 weeks, we’ve had a resident whale shark in the inner harbor here at Puerto Escondido.  The Kids & I have experienced him in the dinghy, but never in the water.  Today that all changed!!

I took Johanna out in the dinghy & she dove right in (with one of the largest fish in the World)!  Within minutes the Whale Shark couldn’t resist, he just had to check her out.  I was in the dinghy, maybe 20′ away, watching him circle Johanna, then he came straight for her.  Whale Sharks are harmless, so I spent that 10 seconds calming Johanna, he then passed her within a foot.  I could almost read his reaction, she IS NOT FOOD.  He then headed away.

I can’t express how proud I am of Johanna, it is easy to talk about jumping in, but when you see these monsters, it’s a tough call.   Sorry, but no pictures, as nobody has answered our calls for a sponsor to supply a waterproof camera

Check out the following Blog Posts from the kids!!

First Blog:Loreto Fest

Well I have to write journal-like blogs so this is my first.I guess I’ll start with Loreto Fest. It’s kind of like a carnival without any rides. They have tickets,bars,drinks,hot dogs,food and games. All the great things you would see at a carnival. So we first planned what we would do:”Were would we put the stuff?” “What would we sell?” you know the usual. Next we sort of set up everything like the bar,drink stand(run by me!),hot dogs(run by my dad!),chairs stuff like that. Then we actually started up and people started piling in. So of course the first day was the big day and I sold a fair amount of soda’s. Anyway, I also met lots of kids like Leo(sometimes I call him John ) on Popoki, Foster on Black Dragon, Josh on Evergreen and another but I forgot her name :\.Leo is probably my best friend so far and we fool around a lot but that’s off topic. There was games and stuff by the day after the first day. Like bean bag toss and others. Well I think I’ve typed enough for now “oh!”by the way I’m eleven(11) if you didn’t already know.

Average Day on Ocean Blue II

Well the name says it all here is my average day…
1.I wake up *yawn
2.I try to get up *double yawn*
3.I finally get up *grumble*
4.I ask mom whats for breakfast
5.I eat breakfast
6.I don’t do much until my mom tells me to clean/help
7.We pack up and get ready to head in to the lounge
8.We drive in with our 4 horse dinghy *it goes about 5 MPH…*
9.we dock and take in garbage,computers etc.
10.I use the computer for about 5 mins
11.Mom says:”Get out your school work” I say:”Nooooo!!!”
12.I start school with language arts.
13.I move onto Social Studies.
14.I finish with math.
15.I either then… a.Use the computer b.Play with Leo or c.Wait to go to the boat.
16.It starts to get late so we head back to the boat.
17.I then a.Watch a movie or B.play Lego with Skyler(my sis)
18.I ask mom “what’s for dinner?”
19.We eat dinner *Yummy!
20.Dad will either start the generator(genny)*VROOOOM! or he won’t if he doesn’t want to.
21.Use the computer if dad runs the generator(we don’t have much power on the boat)
22.Mom tells us:”Time to brusha teethas!” I say “nooooooo!”
23.We brush our teeth *Grumble*
24.I either A.sneak out onto the couch or b.Sleep *ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZ
Well there is my average day it’s not the best but I love it.

Stephen Wilton Ocean Blue II

Loreto fest
I loved the kids tent. I had so much fun with the fishing pond and the bean bag toss it was fun. I liked serving drinks to people because it was cool.
I really liked being part of the Loreto fest. I met lots of new kids. Some of the kids I met were Kelly, Teresa, Charlie and also an other girl but I have forgotten her name. I also met new adults AND LOTS OF NEW DOGS. It was fun to see some of the people that we haven’t seen since Santa Rosalia like Magic Carpet.

What I miss about Canada and love about Mexico.
I kind of miss Canada. I miss my friends and the food. I like Mexico because I like the food and I like the people. I also like the language and Mexican colours like orange, green, blue, and brown.
The best food I like in Mexico is the fish taco. My favourite thing about Mexico is the warm water. I love to swim in the warm water so warm so warm spalsh!

By Skyler from Ocean Blue II

As the title explains, we survived Loreto Fest 2010!

Over 200 boats arrived, with over 400 people attending.  When we decided to stay for Loreto Fest, we knew that we wanted to be part of it.  So that is what we did, all of us.

During the event;

Johanna helped;

- prepare & serve spaghetti dinner for over 400 people

- serve breakfast for over 400 people

- helped out at the hotdog booth where over 1700 hotdogs were served

- helped sell tickets & memberships to the masses

Stephen helped;

- serve drinks at the hotdog stand

- served garlic bread at the spaghetti dinner

- ran food & drinks out to the volunteers

Skyler;

was the smart one out of all of us & participated in all the fun Kids events

I;

- was the Deputy Dinghy Dock Dick (a very noble & elite security force that enforced the rules of the dinghy dock & Loreto Fest Grounds  ;) )

- worked at the Hot Dog stand

- tried to keep the internet working & the website updated

I’m proud of all of us, we did a good job.  It was an amazing experience working with all of the volunteers that make this event happen, it just proves that their are good people out there.

Pictures will do a better job in describing the event, so.. when the internet is working better I will upload pics.

Life is just getting back to normal for us now, the event lasted 5 days for us & we were all exhausted.  But now, we’re all feeling energized again.  The weather is getting hot & the winds are now blowing from the South, a sure sign of warm pleasant weather ahead.

Now our thoughts are to getting ready to leave, which should be about 2 weeks from now.  We’re excited about our upcoming adventures & will never forget our Loreto Fest experience.

Today we lost a good friend, John.  He has passed along so much advice & encouragement, I don’t know where to start.   This probably isn’t the best time to post, as I’m still in shock.

So, I will end this for now, more later.  With sadness.. Goodbye John.

Most of our regular readers know that we do twitter updates almost daily, sometimes many daily posts on twitter.  You will find them on the right hand side of our website.  The direct link to our twitter feed is http://twitter.com/svoceanblue

We also encourage you to join twitter & add us to your twitter feed, we will also follow you.  Twitter allows us to easily send updates daily via internet or our satellite on the boat, short but sweet.