El Pescadores

My mom has departed. We had a lovely time and I think she has a new appreciation for Mexican wine. Even as her airplane was leaving the runway in Loreto, we were hurdling south, away from the Baja winter, toward the warm waters of the Bay of Banderas. If you’ve never been here, northern Mexico does get a winter, a much more manageable winter than Canada but still a winter. Of course we’re hurdling at a leisurely pace. Willow has given herself a makeover. Apart from the new leopard print top and frilly shorts, her eyebrows, which she dyed quite dark this morning, have really matured. Soon they’ll blossom into beautiful butterflies.

Tensions are a little high at the moment. Sunshine III has recently become a non smoking vessel and as her crew sweats out the last bit of nicotine in their bodies, anyone could snap at any second. I’ll keep you posted on any developments. We saw a herd? Flotilla? Pod? Flock? (Feel free to give me the correct nomenclature)Of whale sharks yesterday. We rowed after them in the tiny boat but they seemed annoyed by our presence and evaded us time after time, so no great pictures. It feels really good, at least to me to be moving south at a steady pace again. Kirstyn and I were both tired of traveling and ready to relax when we arrived in La Paz back in November, but that was November. This sea has been good to us but what’s the point in being mobile if you don’t keep moving? New is exciting, yesterday’s news is just that. Our tentative plan is to do some long haul trucking through the summer. It’s been a long time since we’ve lived a land based existence, and it’s time to remind ourselves why we left it behind. It also feels like time to rebuild the savings for next season. What happens when you swallow large quantities of gum? When you were a child your parents might have told you it all collects in you and stays in your guts. Kirstyn claims this is untrue and she once had an entire gum poo. It was a pink Double Bubble poo to be precise. Costco sells the stuff by the bucket complete with the comic strip in each piece. She didn’t eat the comics. The gum poo left no residue and came out clean. “Was it a sticky situation?” Willow wanted to know. So tell your children, swallowing gum as eh-okay and requires little wiping. Modesty versus function, where did clothes come from? Is the loincloth a real article of clothing that was worn or a fictional creation by European and American artists to hide the heathen’s junk? Were the natives in the Amazon happily going about their business naked before some Jesuit priest showed up and told them they need to cover their stuff up? Will dolphins wear clothes some day? I can swim faster nude so it’d be a shame if they did. When I’m in charge nudity will be mandatory, weather permitting.

Kirstyn: Is that person on shore?

Willow: Shorely not.

Jerin: The water is very clear here.

Willow: Clearly a great spot.

Complete with battle scars

After a lengthy dry spell we finally slayed a fish, and a hell of a fish it is. When we were in Mulege we were told there’s no Dorado this time of year and we ought to be jigging yellow tail or trolling with a yellow and green plug. We tried a bunch of stuff and not a single bite. So today we went back to the tried and true slayer of Dorado. We put it on our new handline setup, and low and behold, we reeled in, or more accurately, dragged in a chubby yellowfin tuna.

What do you think about a sailboat named Steve?

​​A lot has happened since you heard from us last. A rolling stone gathers no moss and a spinning propeller gathers no barnacles, which is really nice if you’re me and need to go scrape them off. Turtle bay got kinda crazy, the Ha-Ha showed up, 150 sailboats all anchored in front of a tiny village that lets face it, has very little going on. We met a few interesting people and crashed their beach party. My recommendation, if you’re thinking you may enjoy cruising in a sailboat rally is don’t bother paying the entry fee, just show up at their party. We left 5 hours behind them, our theory being that we wouldn’t be stuck in the middle of the heard, but we still caught up to some of the slow boats in the dark shortly before Bahia Santa Maria. I guess they were missing their friends because several of them steered straight for us. It really makes no sense when you’re 20 miles from land and the vastness of the Pacific Ocean is on your right, why would you want to cruise in a tight little pack of boats all clustered close together? But that’s the Ha-Ha. We took a short rest stop in Santa Maria and carried on without attending their party on the beach, and so far they haven’t caught up to us. We saw some wildlife on the way down, a shark swam up and checked us out. We saw a dead turtle caught in fishing gear, very sad. Lots of dolphins, so many dolphins. We’re actually kinda getting tired of dolphins, their always so cheerful and when you’ve been been driving a boat for days, dead tired, you start to want to stuff their cheerfulness and their little dolphin throats. I’m kidding, I still like dolphins. We rounded the cape! That’s big news for us, our charts no longer say ‘North Pacific Ocean’ we drove across the words ‘Gulf of California.’ Wahoo! The weather definitely got hotter, the water got warmer and we can see our anchor on the bottom in 30′ of water. We motored past Cabo San Lucas at night and were almost tempted by the bright lights and conga lines, but kept going to San Jose del Cabo where we made a quick stop for beer and fuel. We read in the guide book that when the wind blows from the north, the east cape can be a little uncomfortable. So of course we motored right into that very headwind being described. How bad can it be? We braved the giant swell of the North Pacific, a few puny waves can’t ruin our day. Short steep waves smacked our bow and we watched our speed go down. 4.5 knots, smack! 2.5 knots, smack! 1.5 knots, smack! 0 knots. Needless to say, it was a long 28 miles from San Jose to Los Frailes. At least it washed our decks of all the accumulated filth of the trip down. Some friends that we met in Turtle Bay, Robin and David from San Diego, caught up to us at Bahia Los Frailes and we’ve been hanging with them for a couple days. We made a move to Bahia de Los Muertos, or if you’re the real estate developer trying to sell property to gringos you prefer to call it ‘Bay of Dreams.’ A little more marketing friendly. As we’re desperately low on supplies, we went to the beach club restaurant, which was much better than our backup plan, which was to have a can of baby corns on tortillas. Like I said, desperately low on supplies. It’s a beautiful spot here, lovely beach, warm clear water, and we’ve covered a lot of miles and aren’t feeling in a big hurry to get moving again, but our options are to eat all our meals at the beach club or move on to La Paz and get some groceries. I think we’ll probably head out tomorrow. David and Robin are keen on having a beach fire tonight, so we’ll probably be scrounging the desert for sticks and tumbleweed. Rock on.