hola from Namaste

Bienvenidos amigos y familia! (Welcome friends and family)

It's a new year and Namaste and her crew are again headed south for another amazing adventure. As many of you already know, we've changed our sailmail address to KJ6KNU@winlink.org and are no longer using the WCV9862@sailmail.com email address, so scratch that one out of your address books...does anyone still have an address book? :)
Please, please, please email us whenever you want, and maybe sometimes when you don't. We love, love, love (are you getting my subtle encouragement here?) to get updates from everyone on everything and anything that's going on in their lives, or the world! While we treasure this cruising lifestyle, we miss all our people all the time, so please don't hesitate to drop us a note. Also, a quick reminder...please delete any of our email text we sent you after hitting the reply button, no sense in us downloading it over the radio. Make sure not to send any attachments, or forward anything, to our winlink email. And send any pictures to our gmail accounts.
We've also upgraded and added a blog to our communication repertiore, namastesail.blogspot.com, if you just can't get enough. We'll be emailing updates to this regularly, including during our passage to French Polynesia, as well as posting video and pictures whenever we have wi-fi! I hope it's as cool as I'm making it out to be. If you become a "follower" on the blog, the website will email you every time we post anything.
That's enough of the administrative stuff, now onto the sailing...Namaste is currently about halfway down the coast of Baja, headed to Cabo San Lucas. We dragged our longtime family friend, Dan Tibbe, away from Alameda and convinced him he should do this trip with us so we could get more sleep. Just kidding, but we actually are, and it's pretty sweet!
We'll be pulling into Bahia Santa Maria sometime this morning and will spend the day anchored so we can finally get some play time. We left San Diego in the early morning hours on Monday, and cleared into Mexico the following day at Ensenada. After some good grub, we caught the college championship game and threw back some $1 Tecates.
We found ourselves in the middle of a dozen or so whales on Tuesday morning, and based on their huge blows (20-25 feet) they appeared to be blue whales. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a very close look. Later on that afternoon, a huge pod of striped dolphins (I think) descended upon us in a great wave. When you looked out, you could see them all swimming quickly, their energetic bodies skimming over the water in a race to ride in our bowwake. It was an awesome sight.
We pulled into Bahia de Tortugas Thursday morning for a short respite. After fueling up with El Gordo, with the cheapest prices in all of Baja, and a quick dinghy ride, we pulled anchor at sunset. It was a beautiful evening and we sailed most of the night and into the morning. The motorsailing on Friday has been fine.
We have a Mexico calling plan with a super cheap rate, as well as free weekend minutes, so please don't hesitate to call us on Chris' cell (530) 277-8155. But don't send us any texts, they cost us quite a bit, even if we don't open them!
More to come....
-Team Namaste
Chris, Jess & Dan