This article was previously written by Rachel Messerschmidt for and published by Vancouver Family Magazine in June 2022.
With about 4 weeks to spare on our 6-month Mexican tourist visas, we prepared our floating home for a week-long absence, packed just a couple changes of clothes each, and flew from Mazatlan on the mainland Pacific Mexico coast up to the US border at Tijuana. Our flight was on a Thursday night, we landed and then walked across the USA-Mexico border into San Diego.
We spent that Friday picking up a rental car and driving north up past Los Angeles and into wine country. We’d coordinated our trip into the US for a chance to see my husband’s brother, Cameron, along with his girlfriend and their new baby. Little Mila Jade was born last November and, for obvious reasons, we’d never yet had a chance to meet her.
My brother-in-law is a professional disc golfer and was playing that weekend in a tournament near Solvang, California. When we’d learned that he would be there with his family in tow, we adjusted our plans so that we would get a chance to meet up with them.
Our kids were absolutely smitten with adorable little Mila from the first moment they met her. It was a really nice break for us to get that chance to spend a day and a half hanging out with family. We watched him play a round of disc golf on Saturday in a beautiful park under a gorgeous blue sky and that evening went out to dinner and spent hours just passing the time together.
After our visit with family, we spent a couple days running “US errands” – seeking out and purchasing some items to make our lives aboard Mosaic easier, items which weren’t readily available to us in Mexico. Then we walked back across the border into Tijuana, renewing our 6-month visas, and took a flight back to Mazatlan.
Back at the boat, we readied ourselves for our longest passage in a while. We would be crossing back across the Gulf of California, the bottom of the Sea of Cortez, from Mazatlan to La Paz in Baja California Sur. It would take us two full days and nights to get across. Lots of friends had made the same, or similar, passages recently and had seen loads of wildlife so we were really hopeful.
We left from Mazatlan at about 10am on a Wednesday. We had light winds, directly on our nose, and we motored for the first day and night with just our mainsail up for stability. We didn’t see much in the realm of wildlife, save for a few turtles, some sea birds, and one strange unidentified fin that was spotted by Brenden and Kali and which we were excited about but we had no idea what it might have been!
The next morning, we had better wind and we raised our headsail and turned off the engine. Ahhh, the beautiful calm of the engine going quietly to rest and the water burbling along the hull as we glided serenely through the ocean waters. We had wonderful wind and sailed comfortably for that entire day. We had to turn the engine back on and motor through the night, but we had a lovely bright, nearly-full moon to keep us company on our solo night watches. We take turns sleeping and staying awake while underway to make sure everything goes according to plan.
The next morning, we started to approach land and our internet signal came in. We began checking the satellite tracker links for various friends in the area and trying to decide where to land for the day. We chose a beautiful little bay just outside of the main town of La Paz, dropped our anchor and took naps. In the afternoon, we awoke to admire the stunning beauty of the gorgeous blue waters that were so missed during our time spent on the mainland side. Baja was welcoming us back and we are so ready for this next chapter in our adventures: exploring north up into the Sea of Cortez!
Rachel Messerschmidt and her family are Clark County natives living and cruising full time aboard their 40-foot sailboat, Mosaic. They’ve traveled down the US West Coast and have been cruising in Mexico since November of 2021. Rachel shares her family’s adventures on her blog at www.mosaicvoyage.com and on Facebook and Instagram (at)mosaicvoyage. She writes a monthly column in Vancouver Family Magazine.