October 1997

Hi! I am Tracey Swirski, the smallest in my family. I have lived on our boat my whole life, for eight years. I’m very excited about our trip. I know it is going to be very fun. My favorite places are going to probably be Poland and Disneyland. I want to go to Poland because I might meet some of my cousins. I want to go to Disneyland because of the rides and the characters.

December 1997

How do I feel about the trip so far? I like cruising because it’s fun and the scenery is very nice and we go places I haven’t gone before.

My favorite thing is that I have seen lots of dolphins and places. I saw three of the same whales swimming right next to each other. They were false killer whales or pilot whales. They were all black.

The thing I don’t like is the powdered milk we drink on passages.

My favorite day in Mexico was in Cabo San Lucas when our friends came to the beach and we swam together and boogie-boarded.

I thought cruising would be how it is!

February 1998

Hi again, it’s me, Tracey! We’ve done a lot since Cabo San Lucas. After Cabo, we went to Los Frailes and it was very fun. My favorite part was when we went snorkeling. We saw lots of beautiful fish! It was very cold water.

Then we went to Bahia de Los Muertos. We met our friend, Robyn Beckwith, from where I lived my whole life and she has been cruising since last April. She is 13 years old. We went to the beach with her and went swimming and went to little rocks with fish. It was fun!

We went to La Paz and met our friends that we met earlier on our trip. They are on the boat, named “Cross.” Then, we went out to the islands for the last two weeks.

In the Islands, I went snorkeling in the ocean with the sea lions! It was fun. It was at a place called, “Los Islotes.” There were a lot of sea lions. I got to swim with a baby. It was VERY COOL!!!! It was about 6″ away from my face! It jumped over me and it swam under me. I almost touched it but it swam away. A teenager sea lion was protecting the baby. We had to leave because my sister got scared when the teenager sea lion opened its mouth three times in front of her face. There were a lot of panga fishermen fishing there, too. Some of the fish I saw there were: damselfish, yellow-tailed sturgeon fish, Cortez angelfish and many other different fish.

Isla San Francisco had an anchorage that was a crater. It had mountain goats on it and lizards. We went to the beach. We got to play and I found a glass bottle that was broken, a light bulb, a block of wood, and a big stick.

In San Evaristo, there is a little tienda on the beach. That’s a small store. I saw a woodpecker by cacti on the beach. There is a little town there. There are little yellow prickly things with about 20 prickles on them and they really hurt if they stick in your foot.

We are back in La Paz getting ready for Carnival and for Mazatlan next.

We came back to La Paz . On our trip back we saw Humpback Whales.

July 1998

Hi, it’s me, Tracey. I am writing you from Mazatlan, Mexico. The heat here is terrible. I am getting BBQ’d and it’s been pouring and, at night, there is lots of lightning and thunder. My Mom hasn’t been getting much sleep because she has to close everything down in the middle of the night.

I love pets and I started a business of pet-sitting here at the marina. I’ve done a lot of pets. We adopted a stray cat, named “Toby,” and she is the sweetest cat in the world. She’ll never bite or scratch. She does not live on our boat but at Marina Mazatlan where we are.

A couple of months ago, we went to Guadalajara on the bus. In Guadalajara, we did lots of things. We went to the City Zoo. There was a cave with a bunch of animals on the sides and my favorite were the raccoons. We watched the lion who kept moving around to stay in the shade. The polar bear was really weird because he kept doing the same thing over and over. He swam to the place where we were looking through the window, swam back to the land, then back again. The zoo was different than other zoos I visited because it had a roller coaster right next door. In Guadalajara, we stayed at a hotel in the center of the city. Right across the street there were carriages with one horse per carriage. They were very busy at night, because it was cooler, taking people for rides around the downtown streets. We saw the Folklorico ballet in the Opera House. There were lots of colors and cool costumes and teenagers dancing. We also spent one day in Tlaquepaque, near Guadalajara. There were lots of stores with plates and pretty-designed cups, vases for flowers, picture frames made of metal, furniture, and wooden toys. I bought onyx animals.

The Mercado had millions of shoes and the whole downstairs was food stalls.

Back in Mazatlan, we went to NidArt which is a house and a store. The kids and the parents make art out of beads, leather, and wood. They also sell silver jewelry there. They made some orange bread and let us try some and gave us the recipe.

Since we’ve been in Mazatlan, we went to Stone Island twice and rented horses to ride. The horses are well-trained. There are also jetskis, banana boats, and para-sailing at Stone Island, but we didn’t do those because they are too expensive. We just went horseback riding and it was fun. The guides teach you how to canter.

There’s also a water park in Mazatlan called, “Maz Agua.” It is so fun! There are two tall white slides where people race each other and there are two blue slides that are curved. There another one with inner tubes with a bunch of little slides until the last one, that’s big. There are also two tube slides and people go down them, over a big bump, and into the pool.

I am going to school at home . I like to build things. I collect stuff around the Marina and make new things out of it. I study about animals, especially dogs and cats.

I’ll write again soon. I’ll be in Mazatlan all summer.

November 1998

We went on an R.V. trip. It was fun! I got a lot of experiences. My favorite three places were Banff, Alberta, Seattle, Washington, and Chilliwack, British Columbia.

My favorite part of Banff was shopping. My favorite part of Seattle was visiting my friends, Monica and Brian, who are five months from having their first baby. In Chilliwack, British Columbia, I loved seeing my best friends, the Waddingtons.

Another thing that I liked seeing along the way was the Corvette Factory and Museum, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. That was really fun! The new 1999 model was really cool! I saw people buying a black, new corvette – I wish I were those people because it was a very nice car. The factory was interesting because I got to see how they have to use six coats of paint on just the back of the car. My favorite part was when they put the engine, tires, and seats on. Another favorite part of that tour was when they tested the performance of the car.

On our whole trip, we went to six Canadian provinces and 22 states. We traveled in the R.V. for 62 days and went 10,723 miles!

March 1999

Hi, it’s me, Tracey. It is February 5, 1999. And I thought I should write.

We left Mazatlan in December, 1998. Between Mazatlan and Barra de Navidad, there were a lot of anchorages. This is what they were called and what I remember about them.

After Mazatlan was Matenchen Bay. There were dolphins in the anchorage and my brother and I and my two sisters went after them in the dinghy. We took a picture of the dolphins when we were about fifteen feet away.

Then we went to Chakala. My memory from here was our friends, Lauren, Rick, and Marilyn. They were on the boat, “Tortuga.” We hadn’t seen them in a while so we had them over for cocktails.

Then next place was La Cruz, north of Puerto Vallarta. We stayed there for a couple of days, and then we went to Puerto Vallarta, to the marina.

In Puerto Vallarta, we met up with my friend, Kathryn, on the boat, “Kabunza.” We went to the Water Park with Kathryn. We stayed in Puerto Vallarta for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. At Christmas, we had several parties. My favorite party was one where I got a lot of candy! Christmas was colder than I expected. It was fun, though. Oh! If you like ice cream, you’re cool. My favorite ice cream shop in Puerto Vallarta is the gelato shop in the Marina, right near Dock H.

At New Year’s, my sister and I went with some adults on their boat and saw fireworks. It was fun! My sisters and brother had a sleepover. I stayed up until three in the morning. The next day? I was very tired.

The next place we anchored was Ipala. When we got to Ipala, it was very windy. Two boys came up to our boat on an inner tube and asked for paper and some pencils. My mom gave them some school supplies.

The next day, we went to Chamela. Chamela was also very windy and rocky. It took a long time to get there from Ipala. There were islands there that we might visit on the way back to Puerto Vallarta.

Then, we went to Tenacatita. It was my favorite place. We met Kathryn there, on “Kabunza.” We went swimming or knee-boarding every day, right from our boat. It was very fun!

After Tenacatita, we went to Barra de Navidad. We had a great time there. There is a big resort hotel, with a pool, tennis, volleyball, and badminton. We stayed there at anchor for a week and then a few days in the marina at the hotel. The town had a malt shop and a big book exchange.

Well, I’ll write you again later! *** Tracey :~)

May 1999

The way I feel about coming back to shore is that I am happy that we are back on land, but I am also sad that we are not going to the Marquesas. I don’t want to go to the Sea of Cortez because I just don’t like it there. I am looking forward to staying in Mazatlan and buying a VW van and selling the boat and driving up to the states and buying a house in California or Washington. And my parents go back to work. If we sell the boat I would really miss it but if we moved into a house I would be very happy, but it wouldn’t be the same. I would really miss the boat.

October 1999

After we decided not to go West across the Pacific Ocean from Puerto Vallarta, we headed north towards the Sea of Cortez for the rest of the Spring.

In Mazatlan, we met Baloo, with Peter.  Then we sailed to La Paz.  And, then, we went into the Sea of Cortez, north of La Paz.  Our first stop was Agua Verde, where we went snorkeling.  I saw a needlefish about four feet long!  Then, we sailed to Puerto Escondido to get groceries, then motored over to Honeymoon Cove.  There, we rafted up with Baloo.  That was fun!  I played with baby Peter and had Bridget’s birthday party.

Next, was Puerto Ballandra.  We met a guy named “Kevin” on a power boat that took us knee-boarding, wake-boarding, and inner-tubing around the anchorage.  We sailed to the town of Loretto from Puerto Ballandra.  I did not like that town at all.  But, the funniest thing was, I went to a restaurant there and ordered grilled cheese but what I got was a bowl of melted cheese, not a sandwich!   So then I said, “Oh, I’ll just have two quesadillas…”

Our next anchoring spot was at Isla Coronado.  The water was really cold there so we only stayed a day.  San Juanico was after Isla Coronado.  There was this tree there with a bunch of rocks surrounding it with people’s boat names carved in the rocks.  There were at least two hundred names.

Bahia Concepcion was next, a big bay, where we went clamming with Baloo and Fairwind.

The last town on the Baja side of the Sea was the town of Santa Rosalia.  It was the only place in Mexico that had really good root beer!  I drank a bunch of root beer in Santa Rosalia.  Our last anchorage was Isla San Marcos, where we celebrated the Fourth of July.  We sailed across the Sea to San Carlos, where we left Shadowfox.  My Dad bought a van in Tucson and drove down to get us in San Carlos.  From there, we drove to the States.

In the States, we went from Tucson to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, then to Canada.  In Canada, we visited Banff again, where we shopped and went to a restaurant, called “The Grizzly House.”  I ate alligator!  If you go there, order the alligator.   We also went hiking another day around Lake Louise.

Next we drove to Washington State.  We visited Baloo at their family’s home in Seattle, then we went to Victoria to visit our cruising friends on Cuckoo’s Nest.  We went back to Washington to Port Angeles where we were looking at houses because they were really nice.  We stayed there about a week and are thinking of starting a business there.

We drove down to California and visited grandparents and friends.  Then, we drove all the way south again, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we are house-sitting this month.

Nice talking to you!   Tracey