We had lived aboard before, Danielle and I, on a very small 27’ boat. Capella had the usual narrow beam, tight bilges, and unuseable space of the boats of her era, and her cargo capacity was pretty small. Part of our requirement for Ganymede, when we were shopping for a hull to finish, had been the ability to carry a big payload and still move. Even so, when all five of us moved aboard in Conception Bay, with everything we needed, plus a ton of stuff we began shedding along the way, Ganymede immediately felt small.
It was a miracle of Danielle’s stowing skills that we ever had floor space to walk on, or a clear tabletop to eat off of. Only the joy of finally living on our boat—which had been the goal for as long as the girls could remember—kept the first few weeks from being intolerably cramped, and by the time the novelty wore off we were used to the close quarters.
Those first few weeks, cruising south along the Sea of Cortez, were nothing short of magical. For the children, all the stories I’d told them of the cruising life were coming true, and the anticipation was pale compared to the reality. How do you imagine crystal-clear seawater, pure sandy beaches, and painted desert hills when your entire short life has been spent in the Sierra Nevada foothills? And how could anyone who has seen nothing larger than a cow imagine the sight of a whale swimming right underneath the keel?
For Danielle and me, it was the reward of six weary years of toil, saving, hoping, and dreaming, all because we wanted just this: to live on our own sailboat with our three daughters, anchoring every night in a new place.
It took several days in Conception Bay to get everything stowed, and the girls acclimated to the boat and to their little aft cabin, before we hove up anchor and headed out into the Sea of Cortez proper. In that time we shifted anchor a couple times: to visit Coyote beach, to approach a little uninhabited island and roast marshmallows on a driftwood fire, to feel the boat moving in quiet water. Even so, we did no overnighters once we left Conception—it was enough to sail a few hours, to get the feel of handling the boat with an eye always on the children, and to be anchored early enough for a run ashore—just about the most important part of any day.
It was winter in Baja, though, which while it doesn’t involve low temperatures, does involve occasional rowdy winds from the north. Every anchorage had to be selected to be norther-proof, and for choice close enough to shore to get there in the dinghy, without danger of swinging into rocks. It was a shame that when it did blow out of the north, it was usually too hard to make for enjoyable sailing, since getting into places required more than just whooshing dead downwind. But we got the hang of getting into the lee of a headland, dousing the sails, and firing up the outboard to chug in close while the wind blew, stinging, across our faces.
Occasionally we got pinned in one harbor or another for several days, but it was never too bad. There are rarely swells in the Sea, and the anchor didn’t drag.
There is no place we’ve ever been more propitious for shell collecting than Baja. There are entire beaches so covered in shells there’s barely any sand. We took on bushels and bushels of shells, sorted out the best, and with a pang jettisoned the rest. On San Francisco island we found agates, handfuls of them, scattered over the volcanic wasteland. It was as if as fast as we were eating up our food and using up consumables like paper towels and toilet paper, we were collecting things to fill their place. What would happen when we got to re-stock in La Paz? Oh well, one of the glories of cruising is that you can push faraway worries like that to the farthest pigeon-hole of your mind, since there’s so much else to occupy it.
It was January by the time we had meandered down to La Paz, which even though the anchorage is horrible, is a major cruising boat hub. And no surprise, either, since as cities go it’s one of the better ones: groceries, parts, tradesmen, food, all within walking distance of a safe dinghy dock. Everywhere that cruisers gather they tend to set up impromptu social events: potlucks, barbecues, volleyball games, swap meets. We divested of many superfluous things at the swap meet in La Paz, and tackled a repair and refit list already astonishingly long.
A welding shop with a plasma cutter modified the bronze tillerhead so it would no longer remove itself at random times; the bobstay, originally G70 chain, had to be changed to stainless chain (it’s now Dyneema, but that didn’t happen for several years), and I made a set of gaff jaws by bending PVC pipe softened with heat and then fiberglassed. I made them just-in-case: the gaff saddle I’d first made had been giving much trouble: first it wanted to capsize, and ride along its edge alone when hoisted, which was bad both for it and the mast wall. Then the enormous twisting force of the fully hoisted gaff when off the wind was racking the hinge mechanism terribly, and I was afraid it would tear out the aluminum of the gaff, where the holes were already becoming elongated.
It was limping along, though, and I held off on the crude jaws until they should become essential. As it happens, we never had to use them, but I’ll take up that saga in a further installment. For now, I’ll leave us in La Paz, the first major cruising hub of Ganymede’s voyage, with a decision before us of crossing to the mainland to carry on south, or of hanging out in the Sea of Cortez, where the sailing was pleasant and home was close by, until the money ran out and we had to return to work.