Canada to Baja and beyond

seahaul

Active member
What is the little stove, cooker that you have? That spot looks amazing..
Hi! Yes this is the Cobb Grill, link below.
We also love this grill, fairly small to pack around and we like the fact that it uses a small amount of charcoal which was super easy to find anywhere we went in Mexico. There are tons of add ons that we haven’t gotten yet. There‘s an amazing looking wok that I have my eye on!
It super slick to clean up due to the non stick surface. My favourite was quesadillas.. grill up all the fillings first and then pop it in tortillas. Great meal on the beach!

Cobb Pro Black Charcoal Grill
More information:

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seahaul

Active member
I believe that is the "Cobb". I have 2 of them they are wonderful for 2 people if you have more then you get a second one as you can cook many items a a time with it. Mine are around 15 years old now and going strong. Mine are slightly different on the base and the handle to lift off the grill. very little fuel is needed to cook with. I have even used it to cook Prime Rib on it.
Wow! 15 years .. good to know its going to last :)
 

seahaul

Active member
The dirt road we had been on continued along the coast to La Ventana. The views were just spectacular and one of us was completely in his element..rock crawling in 4Lo over a mountain range for hours. There was a couple times where I made him stop as I was almost in tears (sorry a newbie to some of this), the road was just wide enough for our truck and it felt like one wrong boulder and we were tipping over that ocean ledge. Having a camper on the back made it feel that much more sketchy!! He claims we were perfectly fine...Needless to say there was very sweaty palms in the passenger seat. These pics don't do it justice as I took them before things got too dicey!

La Ventana/El Sargento is a wind sport town, period! On a windy afternoon there are hundreds of kites on the water. It’s 45km south of La Paz and the views of this bay are just stunning. We decided to set up camp here for a few days as Cory has been wanting to try kiting out for a long time. I’m sitting this one out ;) He ended up finding Calgarians who run a school down here and they were excellent. If you ever are down here look them up @bajakiteandsurf

Cory spent a couple days drinking lots of saltwater but learning all the basics of kiting. I think it’s definitely something he will try again! We ended up staying 5 days as just watching was fun too! Ohh, and we found pizza! We’d made plans to be in Todos Santos or we would have stayed longer.. I think we’ll be making our way back here1FC03513-81E5-4C42-8ADE-59707FFE6F69.jpeg852A3FA7-26BF-489F-AFAE-5C5C6C9B0D16.jpegE451845E-3EC1-42B9-B25B-50AB1FA6ED9E.jpeg10A4BBBB-DD7C-4FC7-A875-31192D85FECB.jpegCC158901-9B97-4FF2-8206-6B3F5C9CAE62.jpegDB12CA9B-61A7-49D2-8F7A-03002A4E73F8.jpegFB8ED9F2-33DA-440F-B6A5-9F9B3F793808.jpeg
 

seahaul

Active member
How are you folks? Did you go native on the beach , the east cape is my favorite part of Baja
Hey there, sorry a bit slow on my posts here... in real time we are back in Canada sailing and refitting our 36ft sailboat on Vancouver Island. We absolutely love Baja and east cape?, and will be back SOON! On land and sea ;) follow us @overlandorsea for real time stuff!
 

seahaul

Active member
How did the return to Canada work. ??
We had no issues crossing into the US from Mexico as Cory had registered our vehicle with Sentri via our Nexus membership. No questions asked..Two days later we crossed back into Canada?? We registered ahead of time to participate in a pilot project at the Coutts, AB border, where we got a covid test on site and then required to take another one 7 days later. In total we had to quarantine for 10 days once all our tests came back negative.
 

greg.potter

Adventurer
La Ventana is a very fun town! One of my friends keeps a trailer there and spent the last 4 or 5 winters, with the exception of this last winter, kiting there. Another friend built a house there 10 or 15 years ago along with a guest house which has largely paid for his laid-back life style. What really surprised me was what a vibrant music scene there is. A number of the bars have open mic nights and the caliber of performances was very good. There were also a couple of pick-up beach jams in the campground my friends keep their trailer that were exceptional. And all kinds of mountain biking and backcountry exploration in addition to the water sports.
 

seahaul

Active member
La Ventana is a very fun town!

Agree with everything you said! We didn’t get the opportunity to experience the music scene as we stayed pretty low key due to covid.. but were pleasantly surprised at the amazing food scene in La Ventana/El Sargento! Many restaurants using locally grown organic to produce some amazing meals! Some of our favourites were Namastaste, Nomada, Las Palmas and Taqueria dona paty.
 

seahaul

Active member
Since our last post and epic trip to Baja in Fall/Winter 2020/21, we have shifted gears and spent the last 18 months sailing our 36 foot sailboat, Vortice, around Vancouver Island and south down the Pacific coast of the United States and on to Mexico. This was our first real experience sailing in blue water offshore conditions and man was it a Ride! Here’s a rundown of the major stops and highlights.. any questions feel free to ask, we know this isn’t a sailing platform so I’ll keep it brief ;)

-circumnavigated Vancouver Island then south ➡Crescent City, CA (5 day passage, still our longest yet)

-Crescent City ➡San Francisco, CA

-San Fran ➡Oxnard, CA➡ Ensenada, Mx➡Cabo San Lucas

-Cabo ➡ La Paz➡Mazatlan➡Puerto Vallarta➡Barra de Navidad

-back up the mainland MX coast and back across the sea of Cortez➡ La Paz and then to the northern most point in the sea of Cortez, Puerto Peñasco, MX

After the 5000 nautical mile journey, we put the boat up on the hard and left her for the summer hurricane season. Phoenix, AZ is only a 3.5 hour shuttle bus ride from the boat yard where she is stored. It was quite the experience trying to arrange the shuttle with our limited Spanish (we are really trying hard to work on this!) We had 4 large duffle bags, 2 backpacks and several smaller bags we were travelling with back to Canada. We had called the shuttle phone number the day before departure and they took our names and said we had a spot on the shuttle if we arrived by 7:15 am to pay the fare.. around $50 USD each. These are the shuttles that the local Mexicans use to get back and forth to the US.. not generally for tourists.. which we have heard that service is at least 3 times the price.

We took a cab and arrived for 7:15 that morning to find a huge line of locals waiting for the shuttle. The small van shuttle arrive a few minutes later and it was very apparent we were not getting on let alone our huge load of duffle bags… so much for ‘pre booking’.. a very nice English speaking local woman assured us there was another company just down the block and around the corner that was leaving around 9:30 am .. ok .. we will give that one a shot.

We took turns hauling the bags down the street to the next shuttle office and waited for it to open. Once the employee arrived and saw how much luggage we had he called ahead for a larger van to help accommodate us and the others that were waiting. So thankful for the kindness we continue to encounter in Mexico … we just love it! One of the reasons we made the effort this year to get our Permanent Mexican Residency. We can now stay in MX as long as we want and will continue to work towards being fluent in Spanish.



Once we reached the US border we had to unload all our luggage and walk it across ourselves and speak with the agents in the office.. thank goodness they had carts to help or we would have been in for a huge struggle. Once we cleared through we were met on the other side by a different van and driver who took us the rest of the way to Phoenix. One more flight to Calgary and we’d be reunited with our Camp-X again and can continue with our summer overland adventures!

Hint: I see the Arctic Ocean in our near future!!!
@overlandorsea
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dstefan

Well-known member
Great thread and trip! Been to Bahia Los Angeles in the late 80s and Loreto for a sea kayak trip in the late 90s and would love to get back down there.

Can you comment on how your Tundra has handeled the weight of the CampX? Curious if you have weighed your fully loaded rig and what weight it was if you did?

I have a lightweight pop-up Ovrlnd camper on my Tundra, and have actually been surprised at the weight we’ve gained with our build out on both the truck and camper interior. At some point in the future we may be interested in a bit more lux set up, and I wonder how the Tundra will handle the weight and if it would, in fact be much more or not.
 

seahaul

Active member
Great thread and trip! Been to Bahia Los Angeles in the late 80s and Loreto for a sea kayak trip in the late 90s and would love to get back down there.

Can you comment on how your Tundra has handeled the weight of the CampX? Curious if you have weighed your fully loaded rig and what weight it was if you did?

I have a lightweight pop-up Ovrlnd camper on my Tundra, and have actually been surprised at the weight we’ve gained with our build out on both the truck and camper interior. At some point in the future we may be interested in a bit more lux set up, and I wonder how the Tundra will handle the weight and if it would, in fact be much more or not.


We’ve been super happy with how our Tundra has handled our Camp-X. We did try weighing it at one point but it didn’t seem to work properly with the size of the truck and the big rig scale.. so the answer is no we don’t really have an accurate weight when we are loaded up. We do know when we are fully loaded with water and gear etc we are slightly over. We do have air bags which is a huge help, though we have been considering beefing up our leaf springs, which we would recommend if you decided to upgrade your camper.

The Tundra handles it sooo well that we feel the numbers have a healthy dose of safety factor built in .. within reason of course. We’ve banged it up and down hills, potholes, rocks and it just handles like a champ!! We use ours as a off-road vehicle so she isn’t just on smooth highway. We just can’t say enough good things about it!
 

dstefan

Well-known member
We’ve been super happy with how our Tundra has handled our Camp-X. We did try weighing it at one point but it didn’t seem to work properly with the size of the truck and the big rig scale.. so the answer is no we don’t really have an accurate weight when we are loaded up. We do know when we are fully loaded with water and gear etc we are slightly over. We do have air bags which is a huge help, though we have been considering beefing up our leaf springs, which we would recommend if you decided to upgrade your camper.

The Tundra handles it sooo well that we feel the numbers have a healthy dose of safety factor built in .. within reason of course. We’ve banged it up and down hills, potholes, rocks and it just handles like a champ!! We use ours as a off-road vehicle so she isn’t just on smooth highway. We just can’t say enough good things about it!
Thanks, thats helpful!

We use our Tundra and camper similarly in some very rough stuff in the SouthWest, and absolutely agree on the Tundra’s abilities. With the various off-road mods and a fairly complete buildout of the camper we are over our GVWR by a few hundred lbs when fully loaded. Even so, we are arguably over sprung in the back with a Deaver HD spring pack, no airbags. Makes the handling very smooth (along w/ compression adjustable shocks). Definitely can recommend getting the HD springs to fully match and maybe slightly exceed, your weight.
 

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