The reality behind these photos is not so glamorous..
That morning was the final straw after spending weeks baking in the extreme Baja Summer heat, getting chased out of anchorages by persistent bees and carnivorous Noseeums. Even with all the incredible shade covers we made before sailing South, we couldn’t do enough to cool the boat down. We tried spraying the decks down many times a day with salt water to keep them cool, but no luck.
With water temps reaching the 90’s and air temps staying over 100F through the night, we hadn’t slept well for almost a full month and even sitting at our computers to fund our “dreamy and glamorous” cruising lifestyle was nearly impossible. The goals of building up our online store and adding tons of resources to our Patreon exclusive Treasure Chest became low priority, as all we could do was the bare minimum. We heard from seasoned Baja cruisers that this Summer has been way worse than previous years, making us feel slightly better about barely surviving.
In one breath we felt like the world was ending and we were questioning all our life decisions, but we also knew how extremely privileged we were to be living the life we have. This had us very conflicted, but that morning we finally had good sailing conditions to get the hell out of dodge and make our way to civilization on the mainland.
The morning this photo was taken was also the morning we bit the bullet, swallowed our pride and ordered an AC unit to install onboard, stubbornness aside we were literally boiling alive.
This purchase meant we needed to sail to San Carlos, and drive the 4.5hrs up to the US border to pick up the AC and any parts needed for the install. It's crazy with how many boats there are down here how little to no access there is to parts needed to maintain said boats. We planned the install, down to the number of hose clamps we would need to ensure we got all the parts we needed while across the border in Arizona.
So, that’s the story of how we survived the insane Sea of Cortez Summers. . I can tell you now (sitting in our AC cooled boat, which is still in the high 80’sF with it running low to save 🔋power) that this was the best decision we’ve made in a while.
We are counting down the days until this heat subsides and we can get back to lounging in the cockpit and hiking onshore, but until then - we are surviving however we can!
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