The next day we anchored off Baha de San Jose del Cabo, close to the Coral Baha Resort. In the morning we returned Gean to the Resort by way of dingy and anchoring just off the resort, quite a dramatic entrance. Fortunately I didn't flip the dingy in the surf when Gean was aboard. Instead, Mandy and I flipped it on the third attempted landing. I wouldn't say the surf was too bad, at about a foot. Instead, I just have lousy timing. I think we may need to practice our surf landings. No, Vianne was not on board at the time. After taking Gean ashore we wisely decided this was not the place to take a baby ashore. The only casualty of the morning was Mandy's hat, which seems to have vanished. After properly getting beat up by the surf, I was exhausted. Mandy and I returned to Boreas, where Ryan was watching Vianne. We hoisted anchor and headed off for Baha Frailes. Which, I am glad to report is not only beautiful but completely calm! It was nice to finally get a nights sleep with out rocking! We are in rout for La Paz, so we only stayed the night. In the morning we picked the anchor again and headed out. Our second night we stayed at Biah de Muertos (bay of the Dead!). The name is scarier then the location. Actually the it's called that because of the moorings available there are called Dead Heads, thus the name. It was a nice anchorage, nothing available there accept a Giggling Marlins Restaurant. We went ashore and had Ice Cream. It's amazing how the simple pleasures in life are so rewarding.
Most vessels traveling the waters of the world are limited by resources. For example water or food. Some vessels are limited only by how much fuel they carry. We on the other hand are limited by diapers! We have approximately four days worth of cloth diapers. After that, we must resort to hanging Vianne over the side, or simply using a bucket to wash down the deck. This does not, however always work. It is true that necessity is the mother of invention. And now I officially have the duty of diaper washer. In the warm weather, we reached a point were we could no longer stand the rotting stench emanating from the aft end of Boreas. Buckets do well to hold dirty diapers, but they can only do so much. I finally broke down and washed all Vianne's diapers, using salt water. Once we reached La Paz we threw them into a lavatec (Laundromat) and rinsed out the remanding salt water. In the meanwhile we used a couple disposables, and what ever we had that could absorb.....whatever!

We spent the next three days sailing toward Cabo San Lucas. Thursday Jan 4th is marked as the most beautiful day sailing so far. It was completely perfect. We had seven knots of wind out of the northwest, with not a cloud in the sky. Flying twin head sails and the main we were making almost six and a half knots, absolutely no swell to speak of. After catching another tuna, Ryan decided it would be a good idea to go for a swim. Throwing a line in the water, he jumped overboard and hung on, diving like a fish and using the speed of the boat to jet himself away and back again to the hull. We pulled him aboard, and I took a turn. 70-degree water is incredibly refreshing! Shortly there after, we were joined again by another large pod of dolphins. Ryan and I discussed the possibility of swimming with them, but decided against it, due to the difficulty of getting back aboard. These dolphins stayed with us for much of the remaining miles to Cabo San Lucas, coming and going as they please. The wind picked up and again we were under reefed jib, all the way to Cabo. We arrived on the morning of the 6th at 0535 and dripped anchor to get a few hours sleep.
After a few hours sleep we headed into Cabo to get fuel and call Gean, Mandy's mom. While at the fuel dock Ryan had a little accident and fell overboard as we were pulling away. His lack of coordination was due to a serious lack of sleep, and in the process lost his precious Maui Jim sunglasses. After returning to anchor, we patched up his gaping chin, which I'm glad to report is healing nicely, though it's still going to be a day or two before he can safely go swimming with out worrying about it opening up again. I'm just glad we had the supplies on board to deal with it. I would be surprised to see it scar to badly. We spent that night with Gean and Margaret at their Resort in the Baha Coral, and had a lovely dinner and fresh water showers! We swam in the pool and celebrated our arrival at the swim up bar. Vianne swam with mommy and daddy. She is taking to water just like her mommy. She is going to be a great little swimmer. The next day Margaret flew out, and Gean joined us aboard Boreas for a couple days. She brought presents for Vianne and us, a belated Christmas. Vianne has been enjoying her hungry caterpillar puppet while the rest of us have been enjoying our new oil lamp! We sailed north to Chilleno Reef. While in transit we caught a nice Marcel, which we ate for dinner that night. We stayed at anchorage there, which was lumpy, and swam and snorkeled the next day. While at Chilleno Reef, yours truly seems to have forgotten how to tie line. It seems that somehow the dingy decided it wanted to have a tour of the reefs, and set about on its own merry way. Fortunately, we were anchored near a private beach, which had its own security guard. He kindly got my attention by flagging me down. It wasn't until he actually walked over to where the dingy had decided to stop for a spell, had I realized what happened. I was about to jump in and swim for it when a Girl on a wave runner drove by. She was American and we said hello, I asked her if she would be willing to run me ashore
She was kind enough to do so, though her guide whom she had rented the watercraft from, was not as excited about. When I explained to him what had happened, he understood. I made it ashore and thanked the security guard for getting our attention, and speaking no English he smiled knowingly. I pushed the dingy pack to deeper water and made my way back through the rocks and tied it up to Boreas, very tight this time. However, I guess this just goes to show, that when traveling in Mexico, it's no worry as to how well one ties up anything. If anything comes loose, some nice Mexican will surly go out of their way to always return any lost property. Ok, that one was a gimmy! Next time I doubt that we will be so lucky.

We left Encenada Sat, Dec 30th. With only a few days before Mandy's mom Gean was to arrive in Cabo, we needed to beat foot and get down the coast. We made good time down the coast sailing with two other boats, Ivy a 32ft Downeaster and Special Brew a 34ft custom aluminum Canadian boat. On Jan 1st, early in the morning, the wind picked up to gusts of 40, we hit a new speed record for Boreas, surfing at 15.9 knots. I would be skeptical about this, however I watched the speed gauge rising and saw it hold that speed while we surfed on top of a twenty foot wave for what seemed like ten minutes, but was really only a few seconds. We flew only a reefed jib all night and the next day. In the early after noon we made our entrance to Turtle Bay, and promptly caught another tuna, and then broke my good fishing rod, #$%^&$#!! I'm still suffering trauma from that. The line some how found it's way back to the propeller and saw fit to make a new home, wrapping itself securely around the shaft. We left it in place and made anchorage under sail, after which I stripped down and jumped in. After much coaxing and persuasion, the line and lure, agreed that it would feel safer on deck then in around the shaft. As a side note, we have continued to catch more fish with the same lure, just using a different rod. Some day I'll find another good Tuna Stick. While in Turtle Bay we made friends with John and Lindsy on Ivy. John is English and Lindsey American. They met at Chiropractic school in Iowa. John found Ivy in San Francisco and they decided it would be a good idea to take it to Costa Rica. We shared a wonderful evening on the beach and wished them well, when we left the following morning.

Departing San Diego on Dec 23rd was a great relief. About dusk we were finally in Mexican waters off the Coronado Islands. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a red light, in the distance. When I took a closer look, I realized it was a flair, somewhere between the North and Middle Islands. I called the US Coast Guard in San Diego, via VHF and passed on our position and what I saw, giving an approximate position of the flair. All the while we had changed course and made our way toward the sighting, with the intent to get a closer look. After passing on to the USCG that we were in Mexican waters, they told us not to worry about it, and that they contacted the Mexican Navy. By this time we had traveled several miles, and I could make out a small light next to the Middle Coronado Island. When the USCG told us to go on our way, we changed course heading south. Once we changed course, the little light flashed brightly, signaling SOS. I never thought I would actually see someone signal a real SOS. We turned around again and made our way toward the little light. Sure enough, we found a 22ft Sea Swirl powerboat, with one person aboard, no radio and a dead engine. He had been able to anchor in 80ft, but was getting tossed about quite a bit. We contacted the USCG again, letting them know what we had found. After talking with the person aboard and relaying information to the Coast Guard, we made the decision to go ahead and tow them back to San Diego, Making it clear to them it was out of our way and that we expected to be compensated for our trouble. Hey I'm nice, but not that nice! He wasn't in danger, but he was going to be there a while if we didn't do something about it. To make a long story short, we towed him back, and the Coast Guard dispatcher set us up with a place to stay for the night. It made for a long night as well, and we made just enough cash in the process to pay for our entrance to Mexico, which was good.
We set out again for Mexico on the 24th, Christmas Eve. I was determined to give Mandy Mexico for Christmas. We spent twelve hours motoring and sailing. Finally warm weather! Off Punta San Miguel, making our final approach to Bahia De Todos Santos and Encenada, I whacked two Tuna. Our first fish that we caught this whole trip! We ate one and saved the other, for Armando a friend whom we met in Sand Diego and lived in Encenada. Shortly after catching the Tuna, we were surrounded by at least a hundred dolphins, maybe more. There were so many that the water absolutely boiled with life. I grabbed the video camera and took film of twenty to thirty dolphins playing off the bow of Boreas. Then, as quickly as they came, they swam into the depths and vanished. That night we anchored in Encenada harbor, spending Christmas eve in Mexico and hearing fire works until the wee hours of the morning, and watching Christmas movies on the computer, and decorating the inside of the boat with Christmas lights. I fell asleep to the movie "A Christmas Story."
Christmas Day, we pulled out all our presents which family had given us prior to departure. This was Vianne's first Christmas. She had so much fun opening up all her presents. However, in general I think she found the paper more exciting then anything else. We ate Christmas breakfast and went ashore to contact Armando. That afternoon he and his new fiancé Gezel picked us up in their car and gave us the grand tour of Encenada. We ended up at Gezel's parents house and shared food. Mandy had spent the morning baking and prepared a pumpkin pie, in addition to giving them the Tuna. Gezel's Mother had leftover Tamales from Christmas dinner, which I dare say I've never tasted better! I love Mexico!
The next day we mostly cleared into customs, and trying to meet up with Ryan. It wasn't until the 27th that I was able to sort out the last of the details for clearing the boat into Mexico, and Ryan found me at the Puerto de Capitan's office, which made it much easier to add him to the crew and get everything official. After getting fuel and other supplies, which took two more days to get done, in addition to meeting other great cruisers, we finally made our departure. On every Thursday night the Restraunte Le Vendemia holds a cruisers night, only for those who have boats and are sailing through the area. It's brilliant, two for one drinks and free food! How can you beat that? While there we met up with other cruisers, Adam and Kristina from Estella and Scotty with his family aboard Petra, as well as many others whom we hope to see again down the road! As a side note to any Pirates of the Caribbean fans. If any one is looking to the Black Pearl, it's located in Encenada. No really, the actual Black Pearl that was built for the second and third movies is sitting in Encenada. Unfortunately we forgot to take the camera with us when we drove the dingy over to take a look, so I have no proof of this. You'll just have to take my word for it.