NEOS LOG
July, 2013

What a month! I am writing this halfway into August and I still can’t believe that so much happened last month.

At the end of June, we had a quickly planned visit from a prospect I had not heard from in almost a year. On July 1, we met him at Marina La Paz in our dinghy at 8am. Rog and I had rowed in because Rog couldn’t get the outboard started. Not an auspicious start to the day. But as Pete met us, he noticed that the key had fallen out. Hmmm. Back to Neos so that Pete could look at Neos for a couple of hours before we had to get him back to the bus station to catch the shuttle to Cabo. He made good use of his time and we walked him down the Malecon at 10 to the station. We enjoyed our visit with him and he seemed to really like the boat. Meanwhile, we had arranged a conference call with another prior prospect that wanted to make an offer. We had set it up for Thursday night, so we decided to stick around La Paz for a few days. The next day, Pete sent us an offer…what a nice birthday present for Rog! So we contacted the other prospects and rearranged the conference call sooner. We had a chat with them and they wanted Neos, but needed to wait until Fall. We decided to accept Pete’s offer and sent him an email. He asked us to help him get Neos up to San Diego and felt that we needed to move quickly since June and July are the best months to head up that coast. This was not a trip either of have ever wanted to make, but it did provide us with a way to get our stuff to California and would give Rog time to show Pete the ins and outs aboard Neos. We pulled Neos into Marina Cortez and started preparing her for the trip and the potential sale. Pete was able to get a return flight to Cabo July 9 which gave us a week to prepare. By the time Pete arrived, we had packed our stuff and piled it into one of the bedrooms and had provisioned the boat. Erick, a stubborn hurricane, had finally eased off Cabo and it looked like we would have a weather window to head south.

Pete spent July 10 cleaning the lines and sheets and preparing the boat for the trip. I got our departure paperwork completed and Rog and I headed over to the locker to empty it out. Pete did not want any of the stuff we had in there, so we hauled it all over to Club Cruceros. I had barely taped the first “gratis” sign on the pile and there were 3 Marina La Paz workers swarming over and grabbing stuff. They ended up taking the entire pile. We checked out of Marina Cortez and were prepared to leave at sunrise on Thursday, July 11.
Pete used the overnight trip to Cabo as his sea trial. The gribs had predicted some northerly winds but we had wind on the nose the entire trip. When we pulled into Cabo at sunrise Friday morning, the engine was starting to show some signs of overheating. We filled the tanks with fuel and then pulled into the boatyard. They were able to come over and fix the water intake while we helped Pete clean out the lockers. His goal was to get the boat as light as possible for the bash up the coast. We ended up just about filling up the entire front deck of the boat. Our initial thought was to hold a “free” flea market for the cruisers in the marina. Benjamin, the mechanic fixing the engine, finished up just about the time we were finishing up with the lockers. I brought him up front and told him he could have anything he wanted. His eyes got as big as saucers. Since we had to get into the marina before 5pm, he only had about 30 minutes to take what he wanted. He brought his pickup down to the pier and started hauling stuff. He was running back and forth taking every last thing we had offloaded, all the time with a big smile on his face and alternating between saying “caliente, caliente” and ”felix navidad”. By the time I had reconciled our bill with the boatyard and bought some oil, he was done and NEOS had 3 more inches above waterline.

We were all pretty hot ourselves by this time and exhausted. We moved Neos over to the marina, paid for one day, and spent a few more hours completing preparations for the bash. At sundown, we had dinner and then enjoyed a nice hot shower before hitting the sack.
At sunrise on Saturday morning, we pulled out and headed for our first major hurdle: Cabo Falso. This cape is known for some pretty rough water and is highly respected by all Baja sailors. As we approached the far southwest corner of Baja, it didn’t look too bad so Pete decided to stay in close to shore. It turned out to be a great decision. It was not terribly uncomfortable and we saved ourselves at least 4 hours of travel time. It turned out that this first 24 hours was to be the roughest water we had the entire trip. The winds peaked a bit over 15 knots and the waves were 4-6 feet. We quickly fell into the rhythm of passaging. The guys split the daylight hours while I took on all of the meals and the cleaning chores. At night, I took the 7-9pm shift, Pete 9-12, Rog 12-3am and then I returned for the 3-6am shift. We had 2 overnights to get to our first destination of Bahia Santa Maria, outside of Magdalena Bay. We spent the night there and left early the next morning for another 2 overnight passage to Turtle Bay. Turtle Bay is north of most dangerous weather systems and it has fuel to replenish the tanks, so it is a welcome stop. This leg was not kind to us. The beat up the Baja coast always brings out the worst in any boat and Neos was no exception. The anemometer acted up, the traveler for the mainsail was beyond maxxed and Pete was afraid we would not have enough fuel to get into Turtle Bay. Needless to say, Turtle Bay provided for a much needed rest. We arrived mid-afternoon and the guys filled both tanks and 4 jerry jugs before dinner. We headed into the beach for a cruiser get together before dinner and decided to wait one more day for the weather to settle down for the rest of the trip. The next day, Rog and Pete took down the soft bimini and tied the mainsail down.

On Friday morning (my birthday) we headed north and reached Isla Benitos a couple of hours before sundown. With three straight nights without watch, we were rested and ready to make the final leg to San Diego. Unbelievably, this stretch was almost flat calm and we enjoyed an easy run with 5-10 knots of wind and 1-3 foot waves. Pete said he had never seen the waters this calm between San Diego and Ensenada. We pulled into San Diego harbor close to noon on Monday the 22nd. We had to maneuver around a huge Navy ship anchored smack dab in the middle of the entrance to the harbor, but there wasn’t much going to stop us at this point. We pulled up to the customs dock and waited for an hour for the officials to clear us into the USA. Pete’s wife, Susan, had found a slip in Chula Vista and we headed to the far end of the Bay. We got tied up by 5pm and gave a huge sigh.

I had reserved a car to be picked up Wednesday morning so we spent Tuesday piling all of our stuff on the dock alongside NEOS, washing clothes and giving Neos a final cleaning. We met with the notary at the marina and got all of the paperwork completed for the sale as well.

Pete rented a car for himself on Tuesday and drove us to the airport to pick up ours on Wednesday. We got a Dodge Caravan and had her completely loaded within an hour. (Thanks to the marina for loaning us a dolly and thanks to Pete for helping to haul the marina carts full of boxes.)

We said our farewells to Pete and ….. headed for Disneyland! Rog wanted to do something special for my birthday so we headed to Downtown Disney for dinner. They have a special parking lot next to Downtown Disney that gives 3 hours of free parking, 5 if you eat there. So we had plenty of time to browse the shops, the hotel and have dinner at the Rain Forest. It was super!

I found a hotel a couple of hours north of Anaheim where we spent the night. We got to Roseville just after noon and had one more celebration stop to make. We headed to the Galleria and each had a piece of cheesecake at the Cheesecake factory (Roberta eat your heart out!) for our lunch. Then it was off to Michelle’s where Karissa was already up from her nap.

On Saturday, we emptied the Dodge and piled our stuff in Ryan’s side yard under tarps. We met with a realtor and soon realized that finding a house would not be a quick endeavor. We spent the following Monday looking at apartments and found one that came with a garage for Rog to use as a workshop. We signed a 9 month lease and took possession on August 1.

We spent Wednesday at the zoo with Michelle and the kids and ended July still wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. It had all happened so fast and here we were, CLODs (cruisers living on dirt) enjoying our grandkids without constantly calculating how much time we had left before we were due to leave again. Life is good.