And We Head North
The tow boat crew hauls in the anchor
I'm in hell. I have a miserable cold. All you're going to get out of me today is one fairly uneventful day's events. I'll do better tomorrow. I promise.
Wednesday, December 19th 2012 – Abreojos
Bernardo was supposed to be here by 6 am. We couldn’t get up at 4 am again. We were exhausted. I finally dragged myself out around six and we got to the beach by 7. He wasn’t there yet.
It was unusually quiet on the beach. No one was around. Usually when we go down to the beach, we catch a ride to the Victory with the next panga going out. There were no pangas going out this morning.
We later learned that there had been a fire at the cooperative last night and all the fishermen were up all night fighting the fire. The fire was in the room where they keep the lobsters in large vats while they wait for a truck to take them to Ensenada. Several days worth of lobsters were in the room.
The fire heated the water and the lobsters began to cook. Someone's quick thinking had the fisherman put the lobsters in plastic bins and store them in the bay. They saved their catch and put out the fire.
While we waited for a panga to take us out to the boat for the final clean up a tiny dot appeared on the horizon. It was far to the southwest.
That’s not the direction that Bernardo was coming from. He was coming down from the north and I expected him to round Punta Abreojos and come into the bay.
A look through some binoculars showed that the boat had a red hull. Vessel Assist tow boats in the US have red hulls. But it looked so small. Maybe when it got closer . . .
It got closer and it did turn out to be Bernardo. He apparently read all the warnings about Abreojos and went far south of the point before he turned into the bay.
He was in about a thirty-foot aluminum boat. Could this little boat possibly tow the Victory?
Bernardo tied up to the Victory and his crew went to work. Mean while, we were stuck on the beach waiting for a panga. Eventually we got a ride out.
I still had stuff to stow on deck, but the tow men were working hard to get underway. I went over the boat and it’s systems with Bernardo. Luckily Bernardo spoke excellent English and one of his crewmen spoke passable English.
We got the boat squared away, Bernardo got a tow on it and away they went. The big old Victory tagging behind the little tow boat like a St Bernard sniffing after a Chihuahua.
Back on the beach, we had breakfast, took a nap, packed our belongings and said goodbyes to new friends. At about five pm, Moreno loaded us in his car for the hour and a half drive to the city of Viscaino where we could catch a bus to Ensenada
Punta Arbeojos is on a long peninsula that stretches out into the Pacific. It is volcanic, but covered in sand. The road ran through endless miles of sand dunes. On and on we went. Occasionally there was a little clump of cactus here or a lonely ranchero there. Not far from the town of Abreojos a development of really nice vacation homes sprung up on Laguna San Ignacio. This is supposed to be the premier whale watching location on the Pacific Coast.
Dawn and I huddled in the back seat of Moreno’s Toyota and hatched a plan. Instead of stopping in Ensenada we would go all the way to San Diego. She left her car in San Diego. We would need her car while we repaired or parted out the Victory.
It would take four or five days for the boat to reach Ensenada, then the boat yard would be closed through the Christmas holidays.
I decided to go on to San Diego and get a nice hotel room for Christmas. We had been through so much hardship in the last week that I felt that we needed to celebrate being alive. Many people have lost their lives on Whale Rock. We were lucky.
Finally, we pulled into the bus station. The station was a small one-room building built of concrete blocks and stuccoed over like almost all of the buildings in this part of the country. There is no wood for construction here, it all has to be imported and is very expensive.
I bought tickets to Tijuana and we went to the restaurant next door to catch a bite before our bus left. Moreno and his wife bade us farewell there. As with all the pangueros, he asked us to come back and visit.
“When you are in Abreojos, you are family,” he said as he gave me a big hug.
Now we were on our own in a foreign country. We no longer had the protection of our friends or an itinerary made in the States before we left for the trip.
The dinner was mediocre and the wait for the bus long. It was supposed to leave Viscaino at 9 pm. It pulled into the station at 10.
The bus driver gave us our tickets and assigned us to seats 25 and 26. Of course, our seats were already occupied. We made our way to the back of the bus where we took possession of the last two rows on the bus.
The last rows on the bus are right next to the bathroom. As would be expected, every time someone opened the restroom door, a whiff of sewage escaped.
Oh well, ees Mejico.
Wednesday, December 19th 2012 – Abreojos
Bernardo was supposed to be here by 6 am. We couldn’t get up at 4 am again. We were exhausted. I finally dragged myself out around six and we got to the beach by 7. He wasn’t there yet.
It was unusually quiet on the beach. No one was around. Usually when we go down to the beach, we catch a ride to the Victory with the next panga going out. There were no pangas going out this morning.
We later learned that there had been a fire at the cooperative last night and all the fishermen were up all night fighting the fire. The fire was in the room where they keep the lobsters in large vats while they wait for a truck to take them to Ensenada. Several days worth of lobsters were in the room.
The fire heated the water and the lobsters began to cook. Someone's quick thinking had the fisherman put the lobsters in plastic bins and store them in the bay. They saved their catch and put out the fire.
While we waited for a panga to take us out to the boat for the final clean up a tiny dot appeared on the horizon. It was far to the southwest.
That’s not the direction that Bernardo was coming from. He was coming down from the north and I expected him to round Punta Abreojos and come into the bay.
A look through some binoculars showed that the boat had a red hull. Vessel Assist tow boats in the US have red hulls. But it looked so small. Maybe when it got closer . . .
It got closer and it did turn out to be Bernardo. He apparently read all the warnings about Abreojos and went far south of the point before he turned into the bay.
He was in about a thirty-foot aluminum boat. Could this little boat possibly tow the Victory?
Bernardo tied up to the Victory and his crew went to work. Mean while, we were stuck on the beach waiting for a panga. Eventually we got a ride out.
I still had stuff to stow on deck, but the tow men were working hard to get underway. I went over the boat and it’s systems with Bernardo. Luckily Bernardo spoke excellent English and one of his crewmen spoke passable English.
We got the boat squared away, Bernardo got a tow on it and away they went. The big old Victory tagging behind the little tow boat like a St Bernard sniffing after a Chihuahua.
Back on the beach, we had breakfast, took a nap, packed our belongings and said goodbyes to new friends. At about five pm, Moreno loaded us in his car for the hour and a half drive to the city of Viscaino where we could catch a bus to Ensenada
Punta Arbeojos is on a long peninsula that stretches out into the Pacific. It is volcanic, but covered in sand. The road ran through endless miles of sand dunes. On and on we went. Occasionally there was a little clump of cactus here or a lonely ranchero there. Not far from the town of Abreojos a development of really nice vacation homes sprung up on Laguna San Ignacio. This is supposed to be the premier whale watching location on the Pacific Coast.
Dawn and I huddled in the back seat of Moreno’s Toyota and hatched a plan. Instead of stopping in Ensenada we would go all the way to San Diego. She left her car in San Diego. We would need her car while we repaired or parted out the Victory.
It would take four or five days for the boat to reach Ensenada, then the boat yard would be closed through the Christmas holidays.
I decided to go on to San Diego and get a nice hotel room for Christmas. We had been through so much hardship in the last week that I felt that we needed to celebrate being alive. Many people have lost their lives on Whale Rock. We were lucky.
Finally, we pulled into the bus station. The station was a small one-room building built of concrete blocks and stuccoed over like almost all of the buildings in this part of the country. There is no wood for construction here, it all has to be imported and is very expensive.
I bought tickets to Tijuana and we went to the restaurant next door to catch a bite before our bus left. Moreno and his wife bade us farewell there. As with all the pangueros, he asked us to come back and visit.
“When you are in Abreojos, you are family,” he said as he gave me a big hug.
Now we were on our own in a foreign country. We no longer had the protection of our friends or an itinerary made in the States before we left for the trip.
The dinner was mediocre and the wait for the bus long. It was supposed to leave Viscaino at 9 pm. It pulled into the station at 10.
The bus driver gave us our tickets and assigned us to seats 25 and 26. Of course, our seats were already occupied. We made our way to the back of the bus where we took possession of the last two rows on the bus.
The last rows on the bus are right next to the bathroom. As would be expected, every time someone opened the restroom door, a whiff of sewage escaped.
Oh well, ees Mejico.