We added another Mapache to our gaze (that’s what a group of racoons is called, like a pod of dolphins, a pride of lions, or a murder of crows).  Meet the Sprinter van, Mapache Tres, otherwise known as Land Mapache or LaPache.  

We realized that a quarter of each of our years is spent on land, waiting out the annual hurricane season.  So, we decided to invest in a land-going vessel.  We purchased her in Puerto Peñasco from our friends on the boat, Alegria (Mike from Alegria is the same Mike who helped Rob deliver Mapache 2.0 from San Francisco to Ensenada).  

Once we had LaPache, we spent one hot morning in a Home Depot’s parking lot, playing Tetris with our belongings inside of the van, before storing Mapache 2.0 for the summer season.  It was June, and we hopped into the van, pointing north.  But our first order of business was rescuing a street dog and her five newborn puppies.  

Puppy Cargo

Our friends on the boat, Milagros, were working in a boatyard not far from ours in the San Carlos area.  A friendly street dog decided that the safest place for her to birth her puppies was underneath Milagros.  She was not wrong.  The Milagros crew cared for her and the puppies, providing, food, water, and shelter.  And, after the boatyard manager threatened to throw the dog and her puppies out of the yard before the pups’ 1-week birthday, Milagros reached out to our network of animal-loving cruisers to hatch a plan.  Barb’s Dog Rescue in Puerto Peñasco graciously agreed to take the mama and puppies into their shelter’s care, despite being over its desired capacity of rescue animals.  All we had to do was transport the dogs to them.

Rob and I piled our four-legged hitchhikers into the van for LaPache’s maiden voyage.  The trip took 10 hours with lots of nursing stops and potty breaks.  The dogs made it safely to Barb’s Dog Rescue, where they received medical care, food, comfortable shelter, and more love.  The next step is finding them a foster home in the United States, where they have better chances of finding forever homes.  (Please reach out if you have any foster leads or would be interested in adoption.  They are now at an appropriate age for adoption). 

At the shelter, Rob and I could not refuse three more furry hitchhikers jumping into our van for a lift to the United States, where an Arizona rescue group was holding space for them.  We added six to Barb’s roster but took out three.  Barb’s Dog Rescue is still working hard in Peñasco for over 400 dogs in their shelter’s care.  If you have any funds to spare, please consider donating to them here.  Or, if you are heading to Peñasco any time, you can drop off much needed dog food to them (they especially need soft dog food). 

Two Weddings and a Funeral

The rest of the summer schedule was dictated by two weddings and a funeral with time to visit places and people in between.  After Rob said farewell to his 92-year-old grandfather, we carried on.  

We powered up the van in the driveway of our friend’s home with the oversite of their dog and 5-year-old child.  We added solar panels and four lithium batteries to the van to run our electric kitchen (fridge, air fryer, Instapot, and blender) and office (laptop computers, Starlink satellite, and cellphones).  Two of three solar panels arrived in plenty of time, but the third panel (although ordered from the same company in the same order) arrived a day after our intended departure date.  We adapted our schedule, as we are now well accustomed to doing, and Rob temporarily attached the third solar panel with plans to permanently affix it once we were in Oregon.  

After visiting some of our Arizona crew, we continued toward the first wedding in Oregon.  The drive through northern Arizona and southern Utah around Moab is a stark but interesting desert landscape.  The smooth, curvy hills with their orange-sand foreground creates a feel of driving through a surrealist painting.  The scenery is largely a product of the wind that freely whips through the sparse environment.  That same wind decided to smooth out some of LaPache, whipping up a dust devil that tore off that third solar panel and tossed it onto the side of the desert highway, rendering our reschedule pointless.  

We defeatedly ordered another third panel to our friends’ house in Oregon and continued through Utah and Idaho to Oregon, arriving on time in Hood River for the summer’s first wedding.  After that, we got back into the van for a month of land-cruising the Northwest.  

We spent time along rivers outside of Missoula, Montana, where Rob fly-fished and I ran on the country roads. We made our way to Glacier National Park, where I covered almost 40 miles of hiking trails, made way for a grizzly bear, and spectated a moose.  Rob and I hiked to the foot of a glacier, where we put our feet in its slushy edges.  We rowed around Lake McDonald, talked at big horn sheep and a family of mountain goats, and we drove the Going to Sun Highway.  We took advice from a self-proclaimed “wino” and “Montana expert,” who we met at one of our camping spots, to stop at Kootenai Falls and see the falls and its impressive suspension bridge.  

After that, we drove into Washington, stopping at Lake Chelan and spontaneously catching a Bach Fest performance by a string quartet.  We stopped for an afternoon in North Cascades National Park, where I added another eight miles to my hiking tally, through what is proclaimed, “North America’s Alps.”   We circled down to Seattle, where we spent some quality time with friends.  We looped around the Olympic Peninsula, where we visited lavender farms, saw the northwestern-most point of the continental United States, watched Olympic Marmots waddle around the alpine meadows on top of Hurricane Ridge, marveled at the fairytale-like rainforest, and camped along the powerful Pacific Northwest Coast.  We reminisced in the places that our adventure started in the Ilwaco, Washington, boatyard and just before the mouth of the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon.  After all of that, we drove to Portland, Oregon, for wedding number two.  

Our return drive from the Pacific Northwest took us to Rob’s favorite fly-fishing spot on the Wyoming-Utah border, friends’ homes in Colorado, a quick meal in New Mexico, and a stopover in Flagstaff then Phoenix, before we crossed back over the border into Mexico.  

Van Life

The van life is similar to boat life in that we are able to change our environment and live in beautiful, remote places or in vibrant cities.  It is different from boat life, because we can get to those places much quicker and with the ability to pull over at any time.  Unlike the boat, we almost always have access to a restaurant or grocery store, so food planning is not quite as imperative.  But the stopping places are not always as accepted or normalized as an anchorage or marina.  Along with the more traditional paid campsites and RV parks, we camped in friends’ driveways and truck stops, private farms and brewery parking lots (through a program called Harvest Hosts), and park-and-ride lots and sides of roads.  We showered at truck stops and city swim centers, and we frequented gas station bathrooms.  

The van life often felt like we were sneaking around, even though we never broke laws on where we parked for the night.  We were sometimes lumped in with people who are forced into a houseless life, which we don’t mind except that it evoked some unwarranted portrayals of disapproval.  But other times, people were supportive and interested in our adventure-seeking lifestyle.  When that happened, we learned something from our conversations—things like the science of soil in regenerative farming, the genetics of fainting goats, the persistence required to petition for a recognized wilderness area (this one was for a 1910 wildfire burn area), natural fermentation methods for wine and cider making, the elk-obsessed basis for creating the Olympic National Park, experiences of travel and life as a seasonal tourism worker, the astounding value of fresh huckleberries, and the best locations to view moose and waterfalls. 

The Numbers

The trip from Arizona to Oregon, including the loop through Montana and Washington, took about five weeks, 5,450 miles, and 237 gallons of diesel fuel.  The return trip from Oregon to Arizona, including our stops in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, took only a week, and added another 2,205 miles and 131 gallons of diesel fuel.  In total for the entire summer, we put 9,278 miles on the van and filled her with 437 gallons of diesel.  We spent $110 dollars on showers and $273 dollars (including $99 annual fee for the Harvest Hosts spots) on campsites.  And we are ever grateful to our friends and family, who let us get out of the van (and into their houses) for parts of our summer.  

We are now reunited with Mapache 2.0 in San Carlos, Mexico.  Soon, we will leave LaPache in storage in Mexico, as we transform back into seagoing people and head the opposite direction—down, toward Panama.  

It has been almost exactly three years since we set out on a boat to sail the world.  And we have made it to exactly one country.  There are many examples of people who sail around the entire world in the same or much less time—40 days in some sailing races, 1-3 years for travelers set up like us.  We are motivated to move past more international borders, but we could not leave Mexico without one more tour of the Sea of Cortés.  

The Miracle Mar

I fell in love with Mar de Cortés as a kid, having only a pinhole view of its greatness from a single city along its northern tip.  Rob fell for it during motorcycle adventures with his dad along the Baja peninsula.  And we both realized an even deeper infatuation of and devotion to Mar de Cortés two-and-a-half years ago, during our first season of cruising.  

It’s a miracle place with the most biodiversity of any of the world’s water bodies.  And most of that diversity is in the form of large ocean animals.  33 of the world’s 86 Cetacean species reside in Mar de Cortes, including orca, sperm whale, blue whale, humpback whale, bottlenose dolphin, and vaquita porpoise.  There are over 170 species of shark, including great white, bull, tiger, hammerhead, and whale shark. Huge bill fish, grouper, and yellowtail share waters with manta rays and sea turtles.  The Sea holds a world record in the number of marine plants that it hosts—700.  900 species of fish and many important sea birds live in it.  

This interesting, mostly big-animal, biodiversity exists because the geography of the sea allows deep, cool water to run alongside temperate and tropical coastlines.  The large animals enjoy the warm waters while feeding on squid, crustaceans, and plankton from the cool waters.  All of that, plus the fact that the sea itself and its 2500-mile coastline is irrefutably pretty. 

I do not think there can be enough said of the beauty and vibrancy of Mar de Cortés.  Many have tried with the most famous being French explorer, Jacques Cousteau, who declared it the “World’s Aquarium.”  In 1940, novelist, John Steinbeck, and marine biologist, Ed Ricketts, memorialized its treasures in the nonfiction novel, Log from the Sea of Cortez.  Divers deemed La Paz (close to the Sea’s only coral reef) the “dive capital of the world” in the 1960s.  Recreational fishermen flocked to the sea for its abundance of prized fish in the 1990s.  As I type this out, I rethink my assertion–maybe any praise of the Sea is too much.  And here I am adding to it.   

Too Much Love

The original responses to the praise of the Sea’s biodiversity and abundance were unmanaged expansions in tourism, recreational fishing, and commercial fishing.  Mar de Cortés could not keep up.  The circling hammerheads above divers’ heads are now gone.  Sharks in general were almost eradicated along with the turtles, whales, manta rays, and many other fish species.  Without big predators, mid-level predators thrived, and they ate up all the fish that are important to maintaining the health of the reef, so the reef suffered, which further impacted the health of the Sea.  The most famous casualty from the excessive human activity in the Sea is the vaquita porpoise, which, like many of the threatened animals, is often a bycatch victim in fishing nets.  The tiny porpoises’ only territory is Mar de Cortés.  There are literally 10 vaquitas remaining (maybe less at the time of this posting), and the number will be zero in the next few years, because the vaquita are not breeding and are still at risk from those nets.  

The Plot Twist

There is a happy turn in the Sea’s story, which is also a product of human efforts.  In 1995, environmentalists lobbied and obtained protections for parts of Mar de Cortés as marine parks, administered by Mexico’s National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (CONANP).  In just 10 years with that protection, biomass of the Cabo Pulmo reef (the Sea’s only reef) increased by 463%.  In 2005, UNESECO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) named 244 islands, islets, and coastal areas within Mar de Cortés a World Heritage Site.  The CONANP protected areas continued to expand, and CONANP now enforces protected breeding grounds for sharks and sea turtles.  Fish populations are rebounding, and whales, dolphins, rays, and sea turtles are returning. 

These conservation efforts, which include significant fishing regulations, have remained sustainable through today because many Mexican fishermen have been able to transform their careers into tourism businesses.  Tourism taxes go to the agencies that manage and monitor ecotourism.  The tourism businesses must obtain permitting, which require passing exams and participating in the monitoring and information-gathering of marine life.  Despite the upfront costs to Mexican fishermen-turned-tour-guides in education, licenses, equipment, and marketing, many report earning more money, more quickly than they did at fishing.  The sustainable fishing practices and a focus on ecotourism are huge steps, but there are, of course, other problems to tackle, such as reducing plastic waste and cleaning up destructive abandoned fishing gear.  Still, it is heartening to see that people are successfully working at protecting the World’s Aquarium.

Our Second Look

We lose the vaquita, but we are maintaining one of the most bio-diverse bodies of water in the world.  Just this season, Rob and I have sailed with pods of dolphins playing in our bow wave, cheered for humpbacks and manta rays breaching within yards of our boat, spotted octopus and jawfish in their intricately-engineered homes, witnessed a pod of Orca whales hunt dolphins, dinghied around a bay with schools of stingrays, spied pelican and seagull babies, waded next to an eel, watched flying fish jump when spotlighted, come eye-to-eye with box fish and triggerfish, paddleboarded with a sea turtle.  

Again, like our first time in the Sea, we shared many of these experiences with new and longtime boater friends.  And again, our optimism for the world and dedication to maintaining it was renewed. 

Mapache 2.0 currently sits on land in a San Carlos boatyard.  She patiently waits out the hurricane season, while her crew travels north to visit friends and family.  We will reunite in the fall for some boat upkeep projects before getting back in the water and *hopefully* getting past Mexico’s border to travel toward next season’s goal destination—Panama.  

We made it to the Sea of Cortés! And we made it on time, as planned, for one of our 2023 plans.  

The Road to Reunion

We had promised to meet family in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle in January, but weather stopped us from leaving Ensenada in time.  So, we met them by car instead of by boat.  And that was also almost foiled, but by something more human—cartel reaction to the government’s arrest of El Chapo’s son.  The cartel blocked major roadways by burning semi-trucks and other vehicles.  Some shootouts occurred between law enforcement and cartel members.  But the chaos subsided in a few days, allowing us safe passage past the still-hot skeletons of burned vehicles.  We drove that road that is now way too familiar (this made our second round-trip on it) all the way from Ensenada to La Cruz, for a week with family and some bonus friend-visits. 

The Boat’s Schedule

Our next plan was to meet friends in Loreto at the end of March.  We departed Ensenada on February 27, and we docked the boat at Marina Puerto Escondido (just outside of Loreto) on March 22, a few days before our friends’ plane touched down at Loreto International Airport.  Victory!

Of course, our goals had been to arrive a month ahead of them, to leisurely explore islands and anchorages on our way to meet them, and to limit our passages to short and easy.  But such planning is impossible on a boat.  A boat’s schedule is her own, she communicates with the sea and the wind on a whim, never writing anything down and regularly changing her dates and intentions.  In other words, one cannot devise a plan where location and date align without some sacrifice of comfort, sanity, or safety, to the boat and her accomplices, sea and wind.  And when we dare make our own plans to meet family and friends, we generally sacrifice some of each.  

Pacific Baja Round 2.0

From Ensenada, we relived the Pacific Ocean, off of Baja’s western coast, which you may recall included some harrowing experiences last time.  We can now report that, in the last two years, the Pacific Baja Ocean has not lost her vigor.  At least that is true for the early springtime, when we took both of our adventures along that coast.  

Again, we waited out weather at the mouth of San Quintín’s inner bay and in Bahía Tortuga, Bahía Asunción, and near Bahía Magdalena.  This time, our games of Mexican Train were broken up with some television time, thanks to Elon Musk (and Starlink).  Again, on the passage to Isla de Cedros, we discussed quitting this boating nonsense and moving to dry land.  Again, we arrived in the beautiful, peaceful Isla de Cedros—an oasis in the middle of Pacific Ocean wrath—and remembered why we continue this.  And, again, we carried on as best we could with the encouragement of the whales jumping up along the way.

Beautiful Baja

Our ignorance and persistence paid off with quality friend time in a beautiful place.  We explored historic sites, festive streets, dusty trails, and a couple of beer-glass bottoms.  We made it out on the water for a day sail, anchoring for lunch and a swim at a nearby island.  That sail established Mapache’s youngest-ever passenger—our friends’ 9-month-old.  He seemed to share my thought on life jacket comfort—there is none.   And he seemed to approve of the boat and to succumb to the Sea’s charm. 

2.0 in Review

Having completed the 940-mile passage from Ensenada to Loreto, we now feel we have logged sufficient time on the boat to provide a realistic assessment of the 2.0 version of Mapache.  Her spaciousness inside and out brings a comfort that Rob and I need.  We are people who desire space.  We dislike confinement, no matter how much safety it brings.  I suppose that isn’t surprising given our life choices.  Her design lends to sailing in light winds, and to speed in anything more than light winds.  On this trip, unlike our trip down Pacific Baja on the original Mapache, we rarely ran the engine.  We sailed (not motor-sailed, but really sailed) most of the time, and we made better time.  The absence of engine noise was a relief from a stress we had not wholly appreciated.  But the friskiness of Mapache 2.0 translates into a lot more movement.  Steering her requires a sensitivity that Rob has developed, but I have yet to master.  Activities in the cabin while underway, including cooking, require more balance and awareness.  And her heels (leans) have more flair.  Despite my best efforts to secure our belongings, books, cookware, and a laptop found their way to the floor.  

The grass is never just greener, it is different with its own pros and cons.  To us, change is the most important part of moving pastures.  And we are learning to love our 2.0 selves.  We are also trying to abide by the boat’s schedule, which really means not having one.  We are learning to take her advice to live in the moments, and to go where the sea and wind take us.  

We have returned to where we started our Mexico-sailing adventures two years ago—preparing to head south out of Ensenada and trace the Pacific coast of Baja California.  We plan to spend the majority of this next cruising season in the Sea of Cortés, as we did our first year in Mexico.  After that, we will get back on track toward the Panama Canal again and, maybe, just maybe, make it out of Mexico waters by 2024!  All of that means that we are doing the past two years over in our new boat.  We did not pass go, and we did not collect $200.  But we did collect a lot of experiences while cruising Mapache, and with those come knowledge.  Knowledge will help us to do some things better and to find some places that we missed in round one.

We Hate Goodbyes

Speaking of the original Mapache, she has new caretakers, who plan to live on her half of every year, while exploring Mexican anchorages and beyond.  Mapache is a child and a teacher to us.  We made her our own and constantly cared for her, while she taught us how to live this salty life.  She took us to places we would never have seen without her, and she taught us to face our fears and to overcome frustrations.  Our goodbye is hesitant, but we know it’s time for her to inspire her new family.

2.0 Update

Even though we are starting our route over, it will be different.  Mapache 2.0 is a completely different style of boat.  She is a 1996 Hunter 376.  Some call her class of boat “plastic fantastic,” meaning that she is a factory-built boat, made out of fiberglass with very little of that classic teak and wood that adorned much of the original Mapache.  Mapache 2.0 is much lighter than the original Mapache with more living space (but less storage).  This time around, we will be doing some racier sailing, we will be anchoring in new places, and we will have a little more room to spread out in our cockpit!  

Summer Sweatin’

It was a sweaty summer, waiting out hurricane season with the original Mapache in the sleepy village of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle (it’s less sleepy now that the less-humid, less hurricane-y, winter season has started).  But we have no complaints about our summer spot, because it’s where we found new solid friends.  And it’s where, with those friends, we enjoyed hikes, runs, pool happy hours, secret beaches, pool volleyball, beach cleanups, and so many movie nights.  

Still, we are ready to retorno to the sea.  It’s time to be surrounded by dolphins, spot whales breaching, cheer for jumping mantas, paddle and snorkel quiet bays, picnic on island beaches, watch pelicans fish, and get lost on goat trails ashore.  Vamanos! 

Our original Mapache (Hans Christian 38 MKII) was surveyed this week and she did great…appraised at $91,000 USD! We are selling her for the steal of $81,000 USD. The cruising season is about to begin in the Sea of Cortés, and Rob and I will be there on Mapache 2.0. Come join this dream! If you are interested, you can see current photos and a detailed list of Mapache’s features and equipment HERE.

We are downsizing again.  We recently moved all of our worldly possessions (apart from a couple of boxes stored at my parents…thanks, mom and dad) from Mapache to Mapache 2.0.  After selling a significant amount of house/boat-ware at a swap meet, we packed 18 dock-carts (about the size of a wheelbarrow) of stuff from the original boat in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle into a rented cargo van.  We then drove it across Mexico and unloaded those 18 dock-carts-worth of stuff, one cart at a time, into Mapache 2.0 in Ensenada.  Our original goal was to get the two Mapaches side-by-side in Banderas Bay, but the active hurricane season canceled that plan.  So now, we are splitting time between two boats and two cities.  

The living space in the new boat is much more open.  We have space to stretch without bumping into a wall or each other.  But, because the new Mapache is the same overall size as the original, we lost storage space.  So, after returning the rented van, we started the process of organizing and purging.  

Goal: Open Spaces

At the time of our first major downsizing from a house to the boat, the tiny-home obsession had just started and minimalism was trending.  Minimalism was touted as a movement toward decluttering and, thus destressing, one’s life by reducing the quantity of possessions.  Before that, minimalism was a term used for a genre of art (painting and visual, then music, film, and architecture).  And, perhaps predictably from that history, the movement has moved toward a goal of attaining a specific image, rather than its simple mental-health purpose.  The rich and famous often show off their minimalist décor in their not-tiny homes. 

I grew up learning that you don’t throw things out, not in a hoarding way but in an anti-waste way.  Many of us cannot meet the minimalist aesthetic, even in our tiny homes.  We cannot afford to buy throw-away items when we need something, only to buy it again later.  And when we do buy something just because we like it, that item represents more than something pretty, it represents the hard work that went into obtaining the money to pay for it, even if it is a simple tchotchke.  

But I understand and aspire towards the concepts of having fewer belongings to worry about, focusing on experiences over possessions, and enjoying open space.  And all of those are part of the original minimalism art and the original minimalism movement.  Living on a boat helps (and sometimes forces) us to meet those goals.  This lifestyle grants us access to the widest open spaces—the world’s oceans, beaches, and coastal wilderness.  Still, not every day allows us to explore those spaces.  And that’s when the space inside the boat becomes important.  We like having open space inside, but it forces us to reduce the quantity of our personal belongings.  Our method in doing so is the same now as it was when we moved from a house to Mapache.  

How to Declutter

We started with a pile method—three piles in our living room: gift, sell, and keep.  Any items we consistently used went in the keep pile and the rest was split between sell and gift.  The visual of the piles and the physical size of our keep pile motivated further and necessary paring down.  We sold the handful of big ticket items on Craigslist, and we had a weekend-long garage sale.  We donated everything left from the sell pile to appropriate nonprofits.  Of course, it was nice to see some green to reward us for our efforts, but the sale-price was never as much as we valued our property.  The more satisfying reward came from the gift pile.  Giving something we cared about to a person who equally cared about it was gratifying, and thus the easiest way to downsize.

We gave blankets and sleeping bags to people without homes.  We gifted art and household items to friends with similar tastes to us.  The thought that went into pairing items with recipients was not insignificant.  We even gave an old globe to one of our favorite local bars that displayed a collection of globes above their liquor bottles.  Everything went to the person who would most appreciate it.  

Our Tiny Home

People often ask how we can live on a boat.  Our boat serves all of the purposes of a bigger home.  We have a living-room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and even a private outdoor space with a BBQ and (usually) an ocean view.  It’s just that the places are within a few feet of each other.  With that limited space, the most important tool is organization.  Even with fewer belongings than the average American, organizing those belongings in a way that keeps them in their designated places is key to preventing our small space from becoming overwhelmingly cluttered.  But, as in any living space, another important tool is purposeful decorating so that, while we clean dishes or work on our computers, the things around us inspire and uplift.  

Now, we get to work on our piles.  Mapache 2.0 will soon have all of her compartments packed, but organized, and her living spaces filled with the art, photographs, and plunder that remind us of good people, places, and experiences.  Then, our focus will turn back to Mapache, the Original, and her sale to someone who will care about her as much as us.  

Hurricanes.  They occur in the Atlantic and the East Pacific oceans (they are called cyclones in the South Pacific and Indian oceans, and typhoons in the Western Pacific).  Mapache and I are sitting on the edge of the eastern Pacific, and hurricanes happen here.  They start in areas of low pressure, caused be warm water and humid air.  The air rises and rotates, and new air pushes into the low pressure, following the rising-and-rotating pattern.  If conditions continue, the wind grows in strength and a tropical disturbance becomes a tropical depression, becomes a tropical storm, which becomes a hurricane when winds reach over 74 miles per hour.  

When reading about hurricanes, I found that most forecasters’ sites say they are rare.  And in prepping for this particular season, I read that, because it is a La Niña year, the hurricane season will be light.  However, the season just began and already we have seen three named storms (two hurricanes and one tropical storm) close to mainland Mexico’s Pacific coast.  The height of hurricane action is historically the end of the season, not the beginning.  So this seems alarming, right?  

Yes, because this is an indication of how the world’s climate is changing and that historic predictions are not as reliable.  No, because we have tools besides history to help us predict storms, we chose a safe harbor, and we properly prepare our boat.  

Staying Ahead of the Storm

The first hurricane in this area and season was Hurricane Agatha.  She struck southern Mexico’s coast near the Bahías de Huatulco only a few weeks after we left there to come north to Banderas Bay.  Her winds were powerful (over 110 miles per hour), but the devastation to communities was caused by the torrential rain she poured down.  She landed at Puerto Ángel, just up the coast from Huatulco, and her impact spread from there.  She took at least 11 human lives (plus over 30 people are missing); destroyed bridges, roads, and homes; wiped out farm crops; and isolated communities, preventing access to power, water, and food.  Organizations continue to assist the people affected and to rebuild the infrastructure.  If you would like to donate toward delivering water to isolated communities, Mapache is collecting money for the Huatulco Rotary Club, who is heading a water-delivery project in Oaxaca State to communities affected by the hurricane.  Go to our Donate page for information on how to send money for that cause.

We are now safely docked in a well-protected marina in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle.  La Cruz is a small coastal town tucked inside Banderas Bay.  The bay acts as a hurricane hole for two reasons—it has a mountain on its southern edge that depowers storms coming this way; and the bay’s under-water topography creates pressure above the sea surface to push storms away.  Still, I wake up every morning to check multiple sources for weather forecasts, plus the local weather expert’s daily report, given over VHF radio. 

I’m on a Mexican Radio

The VHF weather report is part of the local “cruisers’ net.”  Cruisers’ nets are organized virtual gatherings of boaters via VHF radio that inform on the local events and news in most popular cruising locations.  Rob and I have mostly avoided them, because they can be repetitive, long-winded, and focused on gringo activities.  But they are important tools to tune into when you are watching for weather.  I have found that I actually do not begrudge turning on the VHF every morning to hear the Banderas Bay net, because it is efficiently run with helpful information…or maybe it’s just that I am finally turning into a “real” sailor.

Before I get out of bed and listen to the net each morning, I open one of my weather forecast applications on my smart phone.  I watch as the future minutes tick by on the bottom of the screen and the colors of the prediction model morph and swirl like a digital lava lamp.  The slow-burn suspense is waiting to see whether the color blobs spin into ominous reds and blacks anytime soon, or if they dissolve into cheerful blues and greens.  I then verify on at least two other weather applications (and of course with the net’s weather report).  In the past week, two nearby spots have spun into red and black, becoming Hurricane Blas and Tropical Storm (predicted to become Hurricane) Celia.   

The prediction models daily showed Blas, and now Celia, tracking west, avoiding Banderas Bay. But I know that predictions are not always truths, so I made sure the boat is prepared.   

Swab the Decks

Mapache sits on a sturdy inner dock, cross-tied to it with double lines, each of which is protected with chafe guards.  I have cleared her deck and stored almost everything inside, including her sails.  This reduces windage and limits the things that could fly away.  And, just to be sure, we have followed all of the good juju protocols, from the official naming ceremony to a boat blessing to occasional sage-burning. 

Last Friday, Hurricane Blas passed by Banderas Bay, but we had little more than intermittent heavy rain and lightning.  And Celia should be well clear of us by the end of this week.  My eyes are on new low pressure areas, waiting for them to turn more violent colors.  But until then, I’ve sewn and mounted some shades, because Mapache’s interior is getting hot! 

When I see the signs of a potential high wind storm, I will take the shades back down.  But, without them, the interior of the boat is in the high 90s when I go to sleep at night.  The shades reduce that temperature by 10 degrees.  I made the shades out of tarp material that I found at a local fabric store.  It is large blue and white stripes, typical of fancy resort awnings and umbrellas.  I thought it would keep Mapache looking classy while covered up, but the design is reminiscent of a circus tent.  At least I can quickly identify my boat in the marina.

Where in the World is Capitan Rob?

Rob is also daily watching weather, but from San Francisco Bay, because he is there prepping to deliver our new boat to us. He is waiting on a weather window with waves smaller than 9 feet at 7 second periods (if you aren’t sure, that’s bad to dangerous) to sail the new boat to La Cruz.  

The new boat, Rob’s late-father’s boat, is a 1996 38-foot Hunter 370.  We took her over one month ago, and Rob has been in California tirelessly working that entire time to repair and upgrade the boat, making her safe and ready for their long passage south.  Don’t worry, nobody has to buy a new shirt or hat (although you can on our Merch page), because the new boat’s name is also Mapache—Mapache 2.0.  And of course, our original Mapache is for sale, please let us know if you are interested or know anybody who might be.  You can check out her complete listing HERE, and marvel at all of the work we have put into making her the amazing boat she is.  

For now, we are wishing fair winds and flatter seas to Rob, followed by cold beers, which you can supply him HERE if you are so inclined (and if you’ve already donated to the hurricane relief fund).  

The link between social media and mental health is no secret.  Extensive studies conclude that the use of social media distorts people’s perceptions of their self-worth and reality.  And despite the Mapache crew’s intentional flee from social norms, we are no different. 

Social media is a tool that we use to stay in touch with people, and we have yet to find an adequate replacement.  In our use, we see other cruisers’ posts, which generally show happy people effortlessly sailing across beautiful oceanscapes.  We subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) compare ourselves to those chosen photos without considering the bigger picture.  And when we feel uncomfortable, annoyed, overworked, stressed, scared, lonely, sweaty, and dirty, we forget that all of those same feelings are in the cropped portions of other people’s social media images.  Knowing that we all experience times that are unworthy of social media “likes” helps us stop feeling wrong, anxious, and sad.  The “imperfection” that is missing from so many posts is common and it is valuable, because we learn from our battles, and without the battles, we would not realize our wins.

The Wrong (and Right) of the Way Down

We have been continuing to have amazing times, but lately, we have been struck with a feeling that we are doing this whole sailing thing wrong.  

We made it from Puerto Vallarta all the way down to Huatulco, which included our longest passage without stopping yet.  The places we did stop were beautiful and unique.  An overnight passage took us to Bahía Tenacatita, where we rode our dinghy up an estuary, though mangroves, and discovered a white-sand beach with some palapas serving beer and ceviche.  We caught up to several cruising friends, anchoring next to them in the shadow of vibrant Zihuatanejo.  We visited the markets, ate at rooftop restaurants, rode bikes through a nature reserve, and had an island beach day, then we parted ways.  Some of our friends headed north, while the rest of us followed Mexico’s coastline down.  

Our next stop was out of necessity.  We pulled into the small fishing village of Papanoa after our motor stalled on the way to Acapulco.  To our surprise, the tiny harbor was lined with palapa restaurants and large water slides that shot people into the harbor water.  We couldn’t resist and, after repairing the engine, we paddle-boarded over for an afternoon of micheladas and water slides.  The next day, we sailed to Acapulco, where we refreshed supplies, scrubbed the barnacles from the bottom of our boat, and checked out the city’s famous cliff divers.  

Finally, we made our longest passage of 235-miles to Huatulco Bay, where we left the boat for a couple of weeks.  We roadtripped to Oaxaca City and Puerto Escondido to get a sample of the state of Oaxaca and its cultural, culinary, archeological, and natural treasures.  And those treasures are rich.  We walked amongst historic cathedrals and colorful murals, we learned about the craftsmanship of making alebrijes (brightly-painted wood-carved animals), we ate too much Oaxacan cheese and mole, we explored the 500-BCE ruins of Monte Albán, and we swam and hiked along beaches surrounded by massive cliffs.

Through all of that way down Mexico’s coast, we consistently looked towards getting to places and getting off of the boat.  And that seems wrong.  We are supposed to be enjoying not only the amazing places we stop, but the boat and the ocean, because that is where we spend the majority of our life.  But with too many reminders in the last year of the shortness of life, we started discussing alternatives to this alternative lifestyle.  

Two Boats

Well, it seems that Poseidon heard our whispered disappointments and is not through with us yet, because an opportunity to purchase (within our budget) another boat presented itself.  The boat provides the larger cockpit, bed, and living space, as well as the speedier sail set-up, that we have been dreaming about.  And the boat happens to be previously owned by Rob’s now-deceased father. 

We love Mapache.  She is beautiful, and we have put hard work into every inch of her.  We have made her our own from the top of her mast to the bottom of her keel, the depths of her anchor locker to the cave of her engine room, the shades around her cockpit to the settee cushions, every added cabinet and storage basket to her rebuilt deck and rails, and her updated solar panels and lithium batteries to her water maker and auto-helm.  She is the exact image of a boat I want to live in and sail on.  She is a classic, salty, piratey, romantic boat, dressed in greys, blacks, and wood.  When people think of me, I want them to think of Mapache.  But we are no fools.

A New Image

And we are not afraid of change.  The time has come to pass Mapache on to a new family, and to take up a more comfortable life aboard a faster-sailing boat.  We will have one last cruise on Mapache, retracing our route along the Pacific coast of mainland Mexico, then crossing back over the Sea of Cortez to La Paz.  Rob and a friend from S/V Alegría will fly to San Francisco in June to sail the new boat down to meet Mapache.  We will make the final move from a La Paz marina, and we will get back on course to the Panama Canal by the fall of this year.  

Of course, the opportunity of the new boat is much like a social media post, there is more than the good fortune and excitement for change.  The bigger picture includes the sadness of leaving Mapache and all of the sweat and blood we poured into making her who she is.  (Big thanks to Juan at 7 Ronin Jiu Jitsu for the Mapache replica that we can keep with us even after we sell the real Mapache.) The bigger picture also includes that, with any boat, we will still experience engine trouble, sea sickness, and other discomforts.  But hopefully they will be different.  

All of the bigger picture—this life, right now—is all that we have.  And remembering that life is short, we embrace both, the ups and the downs, as our adventure.  So, today, we go back into the engine room to repair a leaky diesel hose, not with heavy hearts, but with a happy ones, knowing that we have this time and this experience, even if it is not the one we imagined based on a pretty picture. 

I started this boat log while sitting in the cockpit of another boat.  We often create work stations where we can, and that day, we used my data sim-card to run wireless internet on our friends’ boat for four of us.  We focused on our individual projects with a view of a tropical beach behind our laptop screens.  I recalled sitting at my former desk in a traditional office building, with its gray industrial carpeting and neutral-colored walls.  The world behind my computer screen then was through a window—another building’s side-wall.  One day, when I was pondering whether to leave my job (which I loved) for this adventure, I saw a man cut through the area outside of my window, wearing hiking gear and a large backpack.  He squinted with no sunglasses, and I wished I was squinting from natural light and not from staring too long at my computer screen in florescent light.

Cruising Life

People often ask me what cruising (long-term sailing) is like after the 18 months that we have been doing it. The answer is complicated.  It is strange to be stuck between lifestyles—we are not working 9-to-5 jobs, but we are not living in a perpetual vacation.  We still have work to get done, bills to pay, taxes to file, and chores to complete in order to maintain our home and selves.  But we live freer than we did before, without consistent routines and in locations that are time-outs from the daily grind of most.  I have a responsibility to others, who do not have the privilege of this lifestyle—maybe to enjoy this and to just be thankful, maybe something more.  Still, I often find myself wishing for some type of routine that could add “normalcy” to this life.  What that routine is, I have yet to discover.  But I’ll let you know when I find it.  

Mexico’s “Galapagos” Island

Since celebrating the New Year in Mazatlán, we said “adios” to that beautiful and vibrant city, and we left the bustle of people for the wilds of an uninhabited island.  Isla Isabel is a small island, formed by a volcano and known as Mexico’s Galapagos.  Part of Mexico’s designated conservation parks, the only manmade facility on the island is an old research center, which is still used today.  Mapache and her buddy boat, Skookum, were the only boats anchored in the shadow of the island for the four days we visited that magical place.  

We spent time hiking along the island’s lava-washed edges and into her lush interior to a lake in the volcano’s caldera.  The island’s residents are predominantly frigate birds, booby birds (brown and blue-footed), green iguanas, and quick little lizards.  The clicks, screeches, and flapping sounds created from those animals made me feel like I was lost in a prehistoric world.  

We spied on baby frigate birds in their nests, surrounded by the red-balloon throats of their fathers.  We watched the frigates soar like glide-planes with their long and slender wings above the steep island cliffs.  We shared a beach with some-hundred blue-footed boobies, most of which guarded a single egg in a sand-pile nest.  We cheered for humpback whales as they breached just outside of our anchoring spot.  And we even listened through our hydrophone (underwater microphone) to those humpbacks sing.

En El Muelle de San Blas

After that welcome dose of nature, we sailed on to San Blas, anchoring just south of the city in Matanchén.  We loved our time roaming the romantic streets and fort of San Blas, humming Maná’s song, “En El Muelle de San Blas.”  We took a jungle-river tour of La Tovara Nature Reserve, which motored us, by panga, past sleepy crocodiles and colorful birds, and culminated with a Tarzan-style rope-jump into a (fenced from crocodiles) portion of the river.  But that same beautiful jungle river is ideal for mosquitos and jejenes (sometimes called no-see-ums).  And after suffering literally hundreds of bites (I counted), those bugs chased us out of the anchorage. 

Easing Back to Big City Life

We next found ourselves in Chacala, a quiet little pueblo with beach-front, palapa-style restaurants, along with a street of brick-and-mortar shops and cafes.  The anchorage’s ease and chilled-out atmosphere gave us a nice break before heading into our next big city of Puerto Vallarta.

Reunions and Road Adventures 

Puerto Vallarta is a busy tourist destination, but it remains a beautiful city, with its cobblestone streets and muraled buildings.   Its downtown is progressive, catering to an LGBTQ+ community of locals and tourists, and offering foodie-centric restaurants, mixology bars, and diverse entertainment (from drag shows to classical-music performances).  We had several friends from home visit us there, helping us to explore the city through its terrace bars, taco stands, hidden restaurants, art walks, and a cooking class. 

After lengthening our stay in Puerto Vallarta’s marina to allow us a trip to Ohio for Rob’s Grandmother’s funeral, we became itchy to move again—only this time, not so literally (from bug bites).  But before that move, we paused our ocean travel for some road tripping.  We piled into a rented minivan with our pals from Skookum.  We traveled a diverse route, touring Mexico’s second-largest city, Guadalajara; the origin of Mexico’s famous beverage, Tequila; a surf-bum haven, Sayulita; and circular pyramids built in 300 BCE, Guachimontones.

Charmed Life

Presently, I am finishing this log at a shaded table, beside a bright-blue swimming pool at a resort, where we paid the equivalent of five American dollars for a day-pass.  Mapache sits behind the town of Barra de Navidad, in a comfortable and tranquil lagoon, where we get daily visits from a French baker selling his pastries out of his panga.  I am very aware that this is a charmed life.  And I think of a quote that has always stuck with me: “Routine is the enemy of time.”  The quote is from a documentary about a man quitting his job and riding his bike from Oregon to Patagonia.  I thought the quote was true, and maybe it is in a sense.  But reflecting now, when I am feeling undefined, I realize the man, who touted that theory, had a routine—he rode his bike daily.  He constantly changed his location, but there was a routine.  Humans are said to be creatures of habit.  We just have different habits.  And they are often-necessary tools for learning and excelling at whatever we set out to accomplish. 

Tomorrow, we weigh anchor and continue our journey along Mexico’s southern Pacific-coast.  My current world is neither order nor chaos, and I am working toward the definition of my daily grind.  

It’s been two months since our last boat log.  Mapache spent half of that time in Puerto Vallarta, most of which was due to a non-boating emergency.  Rob’s grandmother passed away, and Rob and I flew to Ohio to help his grandfather with all that comes with that.  Luckily, we were in a safe marina, blocks away from an international airport, so we made it to the midwestern United States with speed and ease.  All is well now, and we are back aboard Mapache, ready to untie the dock lines tomorrow to head further south.  

The next boat log describes our stops from Mazatlán through Puerto Vallarta, including some quality beach time with blue-footed boobies and visits with friends from the United States.  It is almost ready to publish, and I promise to have that up later this week.  For now, click on the Garmin tracker and follow us as we sail to Tenacatita Bay, before heading on to Barra de Navidad.