It's only a little over twenty miles from Chacala to San Blas and again we didn't catch a single fish. I even rigged some brand new pink and white hoochies but it did no good. We did get a nice look at a couple of whales. They even let me take their picture with the video camera as they surfaced and blew about a hundred feet from the boat. Other than for that the trip was uneventful. Approaching San Blas from the south I got a little confused as to the location of Matenchen Bay where we intended to anchor. Our radar has been gradually loosing range until we can't seem more than about four miles with it and it was very hazy today. It wasn't until we were about that far away that I realized I'd been steering for the town rather than the bay. No problem, the whole area is one big sand delta.
12:00 Dropped our hook in the center of mile wide Matenchen Bay in about fifteen feet of water. My plan had been to anchor then take the Metz around the point into the town, but it didn't take long to decide that wouldn't be a very good idea. We were the only boat anchored in the bay, there were big parties going on along the three mile long beach, and people in pangas and on jet skis running all over the bay. We wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving the boat under those circumstances. A local sportfishing skipper later called us and warned us about leaving the boat unattended. So, we just stayed on board reading and waving to the celebrating locals who came by.
In mid-afternoon we woke after a nap and found that we'd been joined by another boat outfitted very much like our own. It turned out to be the ACTURAS from Santa Barbara, operated by Dan a former fishing boat skipper and his wife, Patti. It's a trawler configuration with a clear forward deck, pilot house over the engine, saloon aft, and upper dinghy deck. It's rigged with flopper-stoppers just like the fishermen and we use. Dan told me on the radio that it's a brand new boat and this is their first cruise with her. They got caught in the blow off the west coast of the Baja a couple of weeks ago and had some anxious momemts but she came through in good shape. He wishes he bought larger fish for the flopper-stoppers. They are going down the Mexican coast this winter, then plan on going north to the Seattle area next spring. We may see them again then.
07:30 We pass a big southbound sailing ketch called SEA VENTURE motoring along with her sails flapping as the swell rolled her on her way.
08:00 Doing my normal engine room checks I found that the fuel vacuum gage is close to being in the red. I wonder if we've got some contamination in the tank. Well, no point in worrying about it now -- I'll change the big Racor filter when we get in.
We were running straight into the swell which had no wind behind it so it was a pretty comfortable day even though the constant pitching caused a screw on my chair to work loose and break off. Just south of Isabela we passed another pod of whales. Looking in the log we saw them in this same place two years ago. This may be one of their winter feeding grounds.
12:45 Anchored in the bay at Isabela (N21 51.02 W 105 14.75). There were four other boats in the anchorage, two small schooners, a sloop, and a catameran; but they had considerately left the spot over the sand pile for us. If you haven't been here before and spotted it by swimming, the natural thing to do is anchor farther out. We tucked in behind the others, dropping our hook in sand under about 20 feet of water. That' safer than hoping you can unwind your chain from the big rocks which litter most of the bottom.
We went to home configuration then while the engine room cooled I worked on my broken chair. I got the broken screw out and found a new one to replace it, then braved the heat and changed the Racor filter. Fortunately, that's an easy job to do, not like the other filters. I got the new one in and ran Gimmy until he was though hiccuping. It's hard to keep some air from getting in the lines and I don't like him threatening to quit as we're leaving an anchorage. After that I went for a swim and checked our ground tackle. The water is very clear here and I could follow the chain as it wove its way in the sand between the small buried rocks on the bottom -- nothing there likely to catch and hold it. We've got an eighty-five mile run tomorrow, no time to go fishing for our anchor in the morning.
Isabela is quite different now than it was just before Christmas two years ago. At that time there must have been a couple of hundred people here. The fishermen had all brought their families out for a big get together and, in addition, there were ten yachts in the harbor. This time the place is almost deserted. We have only seen three or four pangas, only a couple of the shelters on the beach appear occupied, and the two little schooners took off before dark so there are now only three of us in the anchorage. We've decided not to stay. The birds are still here but we've seen them, taken their pictures, and the weather looks good for another day of smooth running tomorrow so we'll move on.
07:00 Fish on the starboard line. I was running a green and yellow feather there, one with a little weight in it. I went back and pulled in a pretty good sized bonito. Well, at least we won't get skunked today, I thought as I went back to the helm.
07:15 Another fish on the starboard line, this time a little skipjack. I pulled him in and, as I threw him in the bucket without even bothering to bleed him, I noticed that the bungee on the port line was stretched to its full length. Looking back, I then saw that that line was angling off across the other -- something big was back there. Well, I sure wasn't going to mess with it until it surfaced, so I went back to the helm and waited for three or four minutes before anything appeared above the water. Then all hell broke loose. The biggest dorado we've ever hooked was on the line. He fought and fought and fought. It was fifteen minutes before I dared try to bring him in. Finally, when he was pretty well dragging on the surface with only his tail flapping now and then, we slowed down and I pulled him up to the boat. I didn't dare try to get him over the stern the way I normally do, so I pulled him up along the side to the salon windows where the lowest part of the gunwale is and tried to heave him aboard. I couldn't do it, he was too long and heavy for me to swing up. I finally just drug him over the side with the steel leader, spraining my wrist as I did so. Fortunately, he was worn out and didn't put up a fight. He measured 49 1/2 inches from his bulbous head to his tail and Dad's little fish scale put him at 28 pounds. Unfortunately, that's the top limit of the scale so we don't really know how heavy he was. He sure felt heavier as I tried to lift him.
07:45 We'd just gotten things cleaned up and our big fish laid out on the side deck with a wet towel over him, when another hit the port line. This time it was a little female, not over four pounds, but just right for eating. Wow! We're still not out of sight of Isabela and already four fish. That makes up for the last two days of getting skunked.
09:00 Looks like our fishing is over for a while but we now have whales for entertainment. Several have been blowing around us, one pair close enough for me to get a picture. The swell is laying down, the sea glassy, so I go out and fillet the little dorado and the bonito, toss the skipjack over the side, then try to figure out how I'm going to butcher the big guy. About that time the seas start to build again, rolling us around, so I just throw another bucket of water on him and decide to wait 'till we hit port.
14:00 We see the first vessel we've seen all day, a fishing panga at least thirty miles from the nearest port, and at the same time have another dorado on the line, this one a spinner. One like him completely unwound my braided wire leader down south of Quepos last year. I'm not sure how they do it, but somehow they curve their body so that it acts like a falling leaf, spinning around and around with their tail flailing the water on every turn. This time, though, I had a ball bearing swivel on the leader which did its job. Although the fish spun until I swung him out of the water, the lure and leader was undamaged. The fish was another thing -- as I tried to lift him by the dill cover something broke and blood spewed out all over the deck. What a mess! We slowed down and I got out the hose -- it was too mush to try to clean up with buckets. The washdown pump did its job though, and we soon had both of the fish cleaned up and layed out under the towel.
15:00 Mazatlan's headlands now visible in the distance and we have another whale show going on, this one the most spectacular we've ever seen. The introduction was a full breach by a huge whale followed by a leap by what I first thought was a dolpin. Then time after time the big whale leaped and for every leap the smaller animal would leap twice. As they got closer it became obvious that this was a mother and her pup. She would lie on her side and lift one flipper out of the water, waving it high and then slapping the surface with it, making a big splash. Then, somehow, she would get both flippers out of the water at once and bring them down, seeming to direct the dance of the little guy as he kept leaping high out of the water around her. She'd blow, then he'd blow, then make another wild leap. We slowed and they got very close, to where I could see the encrustations on the old girl's flippers when she raised them out of the water. They entertained us for almost half an hour before crossing behind us and disappearing into the setting sun. It may be that, as some of the books say, whales breach to rid themselves of parasites, but this show looked much more like joyous play of a mother and her child.
17:30 Into the harbor at Mazatlan. As we anchored we noticed that EXIT LEFT, was just to our port and, about the time I got through with butchering the fish, there was a knock on the hull. It turned out to be Ulrich and Margot, a couple on a boat named SEEADLER II from Switzerland whom we had met at Elfin Cove in Alaska almost four years ago. Small world!
Got the Metz down and the awning up and about noon ran into the dock at Club Nautico where they have a nice dock devoted to the dinghies of transient boaters. They still don't charge a fee, which is surprising considering that they don't sell anything to the users. The only time it costs you anything is if you get back after 7:00 PM you have to tip the guard a couple of thousand pesos to open the gate for you. We parked the Metz on the dock, then walked along the causeway where all the sportfishing outfits are based. At mid-day most are deserted with all their boats out fishing, then about 2:00 o'clock they start coming in and the docks become a very busy place with fish hanging everywhere. Beyond the docks, we walked up the hill overlooking the ferry terminal and city to Lidia and Gus' house and were happy to find them home. When we rang the bell Lidia answered immediately, recognizing Lois' voice even before she saw us. Gus, who we'd never met -- he was on a boat delivery when we were here two years ago -- had just yesterday had an operation to repair a hernia and came home from the hospital this morning so was sitting mighty easy, but he's a lively little guy and can't stay in one place very long. As soon as Lidia introduced us he said that someone was looking for us on the Ham net this morning. He immediately went to the radio and in about five minutes had the message: Bob and Kristy are coming to Mazatlan on the 8th. He then set up a phone patch into Tiburon where he got Bob on the phone. Something was wrong with the patch so we couldn't hear Bob, but the message we got was that they would be here on the Mexicana Airlines flight arriving about 2:00 o'clock on Wednesday. Alright!
While all this was going on Lidia was talking and cooking, both of which she does very well. She then insisted on feeding us a lunch of chicken soup and homemade tortillas -- great! After an hour more of chatting we took our leave and walked down the hill to the ferry terminal where we hoped to be able to make a USA Direct phone call. Yep, one of the new phones was installed there. We got through to Nan, and Dad and Mom, but all we got in Tiburon was the answering machine. Oh well, the message had been passed. It wasn't until we were back at the boat that we realized that Wednesday isn't the 8th, it's the 9th. I suspect the 8th is right and Bob got confused about the day, but we'll have to try calling again tomorrow anyway.
Ulrich and Margot came over for a dinner of dorado this evening and we had a nice chat with them. They've spent most of the past three years in Boat Harbor, Canada where Ulrich was plying his boat building trade. He's bought into a small operation there and so now they have a home base. They are heading for the South Pacific, New Zealand, and other points west.
It was a quiet day in Mazatlan. I'm not quite sure where it went. Lois did a wash this morning, I checked the batteries and sea cocks and fooled around trying to get a weatherfax from Hawaii. I just can't quite get a strong enough signal yet to overcome the noise which the little decoder generates. I'm getting good pictures from Point Rey in California but they don't transmit anything as comprehensive as Hawaii does. They've even stopped transmitting the 500 millibar forcast which shows the location of the jet stream. That's the best way to picture how the storm centers are going to move. I've been building a file of charts in the hope that we can pick a good day to make the jump across the Gulf. It's a 200 mile run, 27 hours at our normal cruising speed, so it would be nice to have as nice weather as possible.
About noon we walked up to Gus & Lidia's again, taking a package of dorado and a copy of the video tape we took while here two years ago. Had another nice visit with that pair, recalling the names of many of the boats and boaters we were traveling with at that time. As we were walking back to the dock we watched a professional at Club Nautico filet a dorado. I don't waste much the way I've been doing it but in about two minutes I learned how to make the job easier and save ten percent more meat. He did it very much like we saw the pros filet the halibut at Gustaves in Alaska, first making an outline cut through the skin then stripping the skin off before taking the meat. He ran the cut in a curve far up the head over the eye which exposed a nice strip of meat which I've been throwing away with the head. Interesting!
It's easy to find your way around Mazatlan -- all you have to do is look for the twin blue and yellow towers of the church which are visible from almost anywhere in the central area. There's no mistaking them, and they mark the location of the central plaza, the post office, several of the banks including the one that makes Visa cash advances, the central market, and all the fancy botiques which Lois loves to look through, although she seldom buys anything. We wandered through the central market, down the street with all the little taco stands which smell so good, and ended up at Bony's, a restaurant frequented by locals during the business week but in which we were the only customer this afternoon. We had our tacos and beer, then wandered back to the central plaza, sat on a bench in the shade and watched people for a while, discovered a kind of date palm growing there with a strawberry red fruit which we'd never seen before, and finally walked back over intending to pick up a few fresh vegetables before going back to the boat. No luck, the market closes at 1:00 on Sundays. No problem, we can get along. With a little help from people we asked, we found the route of the Sarragosa bus which terminates about a half block from Gus and Lidia's and for 1000 pesos rode, rather than walked, up the hill again. Gus was answering some Christmas letters which we'd promised to take to Thea on EXIT LEFT who left for the States this afternoon and vounteered to carry mail. Lidia fixed us a drink while he finished, then we headed home, arriving just as Thea and Gail were heading for the ferry.
The wind came up this evening, only about fifteen knots in the anchorage but very definitely a different wind than the "light and variables" we've been having. I blew steadily all night and didn't change direction until after dawn when it veered around from northwest to northeast. It will be interesting to see what the weatherfax looks like in the morning.
El Lunes, 7 Enero 1991
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Except for me taking a run over to the dock to make one last wish list call to Bob & Kris, we never left the boat today. Good thing I called -- they had changed their flight schedule to come in on Alaska Airlines about two hours later than the Mexicana flight. Alaska will let them return from Cabo without penalty. Lois was futzing around all day airing sheets and blankets, packing and repacking things to make room for our coming guests, dusting and dabbing at everything in sight. Her back was hurting her but I couldn't get her to sit still for a moment. I got the morning weatherfax then retired to the engine room to repair a corroded light fixture and do my ninety day engine zinc checks. I'd put in new zincs all around in October and they were all still in good shape.
The wind blew again this afternoon and a good portion of the night, gusting to 20 knots at times. The weatherfax showed the high off the coast has moved north and a little closer. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
From the bank we went to a copy shop where we got copies of our approved crew list from Puerto Vallarta. We hadn't intended to even check in her in Mazatlan, but with Bob & Kris joining us for the trip to La Paz I've decided we'd better get them on an approved crew list, so we'll have to go through the check-in/check-out process. We'll do that Thursday. From the copy shop we went to the central market where we found a huge display of good looking fruits and vegetables on this Tuesday morning. The Mazatlan market is cleaner and better laid out than most, and you can choose between dozens of stands for almost anything you want in the way of fresh produce, meats, fish, dairy products, or breads. They also have a number of "restaurants" serving some very good smelling stuff, but I've never been able to get Lois to try them. We loaded a couple of shopping bags with goodies, then caught the next Playa Sur bus to home.
Back at the boat, Lois had just finished putting the vegetables away and was starting to lay out things for dinner when she suddenly found she couldn't stand up staight -- she had a catch in her back. I got her into bed and tried to get her to lie still for a while, but every few minutes she'd get up again, then get smacked with the same problem again, and I'd have to help her back to bed. Finally I fixed her a big slug of vodka in some grapefruit juice which seemed to help her relax. We'd invited Gus and Lidia down to the boat for dinner and Lois had planned all kinds of goodies but she finally had to give up and let things take their own course. It all worked out OK anyway. Gus and Lidia showed up a little before 5:00 and by the time we'd had a couple of drinks with them she was doing well enough to do her usual super job with the dorado. We had a nice evening with Gus & Lidia. Gus has quite a collection of jokes which he loves to tell, and did. Kept us laughing all evening.
The rest of the day was as you'd expect -- Christmas in January. We went back to the boat, unloaded all the stuff, had a couple of drinks and leftover meat loaf for dinner, then watched a Tahiti travel log tape which Kris had brought along.
After breakfast and the weatherfax, we all headed off to do the check-in, check-out bit. We rode the Playa Sur bus to the corner of Aleman, walked from there to the little pie shaped building where the port operations office used to be. There, the same nice lady that typed out our bill for us before said that we could now go directly to the office where we pay our fee. It is across the street, inside the fenced and guarded port gates. We all trooped across there, found the office, and waited while a nice young lady typed up seven copies of our bill and receipt between discussions with her friend of their last night's dates. Next we caught a taxi across town to the Capitania de Puerto. (The other night Gus answered a question that had been bothering me for a long time -- why do some signs refer to the Capitan de Puerto, and others the Capitania? The Capitania is the office, the Capitan is the person.)
In that office, another pretty young lady checked us in with not even a question about where we'd been since the first of November but, said we had to go to immigration before we could check us out. Another taxi took us back to almost where we'd been and delivered us to Migracion where the whole office was in the middle of examining jewelry being sold by one of the employees. I managed to get the attention of one of the girls who typed out the appropriate phrase on our papers -- I had omitted it hoping that we might get away without it --, stamped my seven copies, and sent us on our way. Back to the Capitania again, final stamps and signatures, and we were through with the paperwork.
We walked down the beautiful shoreside promenade, found a restaurant, and had a lunch of nachos and beer. Lois wanted to show Bob & Kris the "Golden Zone", so from there we took another open taxi out along the water front to the high rent district. I had the driver drop us at Sea Shell City, a good place to start the tour. They have the largest collection of shells we've ever seen, and they claim the largest in the world. Millions of shells are used to paint murals and decorate the walls, and millions of others are for sale. Not cheaply -- they want $30.00 for a piece of staghorn coral like we used for our Christmas tree last year. We wandered through there and a few other shops, then caught a bus which took us on a long route around the city before dropping us near the central market. We toured it, buying a few oranges and avocados, then caught the Zaragosa bus which we thought would take us to Gus and Lidia's. Only part way -- another bus had run into a telephone pole and was blocking the road so we had to walke the last half mile.
At Gus & Lidia's we rested for a while and sipped one of Lidia's "Cucarachas". Lidia suggested that we all go to a place which she said served a really good pasole, so we walked back to the boat, ran Gennie for a while, then met the Nitschs at the dock at six o'clock. Lidia, as usual, was right. The pasole at El Mecenas was great -- and cheap -- including a round and a half of beer, it cost about $30.00 for the six of us. We ended the evening by visiting Lidia's favorite bakery right across the street where we bought some shamefully sinful pastries, then retiring for coffee at the Nitschs. A fun and interesting day.
While the ladies put the foods away Bob and I ran back to Club Nautico to buy some gas for the Metz. While there one of the sport fishers came in -- not one of the big "flota" (fleet) boats, but rather a small, nicely outfitted boat, with two big 200 hp outboards on it. He had a good sized marlin which his Mexican helpers dragged up on the ramp. We got to talking and he said they didn't get many marlin at this time of year, mostly sailfish. He said yesterday had been a really hot day for sailfish. We could attest to that -- we must have seen thirty or forty of them hanging on the several flota ramps as we'd walked back from Gus and Lidia's.
We went out again for dinner, this time to Doney's, a very nice restaurant in the central area which Gus and Lidia say is the best in town. It was very good -- good food, good service, and nice surroundings. By the time we got back to the boat the gates were locked, and there was no guard around to open it, so we had to climb over. Kris led the way, scrambling over first like a pre-teen, but it took both Bob and I pushing to get Lois over the eight foot high gate. While we were gone the wind had picked up and by the time we got back to the boat there was quite a breeze. Sure nothing on the weather charts to indicate why, and later it all died down again. We'll cross our fingers and head out in the morning.
06:35 Up anchor, only a little fuzzy, and off and running as the sun starts to paint a spectacular sunrise across the sky. No wind and, as we turn the corner and head for Ensenada de Los Muertos, 192 NM away, there's a low, bumpy but not uncomfortable swell running.
09:05 We pass the ferry, Puerto Vallarta, on its way in. The ferry no longer runs to Puerto Vallarta but still carries its name.
09:30 The gals have fed us a breakfast of fruit and pastries, we're running good, and have an ETA at Muertos of 10:00 AM tomorrow morning. I turn on the watermaker and we start making up the 150 gallons or so we're down after being in the harbor for a week. Bob has the fish lines out and has already caught a couple of skipjack which he threw back.
12:30 Fish on! This time it's a real one. When one of the lines goes swinging off across the other you know that it isn't a skip or a bonito. When he hauls it in we find a nice little male dorado, just right for a couple of tasty meals. The wind is building now, showing a steady twenty knots on the anemometer of which we're contributing five or six. We're starting to pitch a little but with the wind and wave off our starboard bow we're not rolling much. I help Bob bleed the fish and lay it out on the side deck with a wet towel over it to keep it cool.
13:40 It's getting pretty bouncy now as the wind holds steady at an indicated twenty and the seas build. I hear Bob yell, "Fish on!" again as he runs excitedly to the aft deck and starts hauling on the line. I've tried to coach him to let the fish drag for a while but he'll have none of it --- he's too well imbibed with the "set the hook and play the fish" game. With our drag lines playing the fish consists of dragging it until it quits fighting. When he gets the fish up to the boat Bob yells at me, "Dale! I need some help!" He did. It was a big one. After my experience the other day I knew that I ought to go get the gaff hook, but I'm no expert at using it and I hate to spoil even a small part of dorado meat; so we pulled the still fighting fish up along side the boat and the two of us heaved it aboard. It was a nice one, as big or bigger than the one I caught the other day. At that point we gave up fishing -- our freezer is almost full with all the goodies which Bob & Kris brought down. These two fish will be as much as we can handle.
14:30 Getting really lumpy now. I drop the starboard flopperstopper in the water and the roll, which was starting to toss things around, becomes bearable. Our speed is down now. With a "fish" in the water, and bucking the seas, we're making good less than six knots.
In one of my hourly engine room checks I find oil in the upper bilge, below the transmission but can't find the source. I check the hydraulic reservoir and it's down below the filler neck but I can't find any oil on the hoses. Damned mysteries, I hate them! I worry, but there's not much more I can do without shutting down the engine and I'm not about to do that out here.
17:00 Still bouncing our way along with the wind, which we'd hoped would lie down as evening approached, still showing a steady 20 to 25 knots. Kris digs out some ice, Lois brings up the bottles, and we each pour our own evening drink as we pitch and roll our way along. Dinner is crackers, cheese, and some of the smoked tuna we bought at the market yesterday, all finger food. The Satnav tells us that we're not even doing five knots -- every time we hit one of the steep swells the boat almost comes to a halt.
19:00 We decide to go on three hour watches in pairs, Bob and Lois taking the first watch while I, the early-to-bedder, hit the sack and Kris reads. The three hours off duty went fast -- didn't get much sleep but the bed down below is the most comfortable place on the boat.
22:00 Kris and I take over. No change in conditions, just slogging our way along.
El Domingo, 13 Enero 1991
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00:45 The westbound ferry passes us about four miles to starboard. He left Mazatlan at 5:00 and will arrive at Pichelinque at about 9:00 AM, punching through the waves at about 14 knots. At our speed we'll be lucky to get to Muertos before dark this evening.
01:00 Bob & Lois take over again, Kris crashes on the sofa, and I go below. Still can't sleep with all the pitching, but it feels good to relax. Sitting in the helm chair is like riding on a saddle horse.
04:00 Our turn again. Holding on always with one hand to something firm, I manage to make a small pot of coffee after dumping the grounds over the galley once when a sudden roll threw me against the bulkhead. We roll on through the night. The breaking waves are ghostly looking white phantoms appearing out of the dark sea spooking old SEA RAVEN and making her jump sideways, almost unseating us. We sure appreciate her hobbles, the flopper-stoppers -- without them she'd pitch us off for sure. As the morning light comes the seas show themselves confused and lumpy, waves coming from several directions forming white topped haystacks higher than our heads.
The rest of the day went on like it started. By noon we were showing thirty miles to go and had picked up a little speed, doing about 5.5 knots. The afternoon went slowly, all of us pooped and wishing the miles would decrease faster.
17:15 We drive into Ensenada de los Muertos and finally stop pitching even though the wind is still doing its 20-25 knots. Dropping the hook in the sand, we pour a drink, the ladies cook the dorado, and we crash -- or at least I did. Didn't hear a thing until morning.
We poked around in the tide pools on the point -- not much there -- then on the way back got to talking with a Canadian in a motor home who told us that there was a bar less than a mile up the road. The sun was warm and we were getting a bit short on beer, so we decided to stroll up that way. Sure enough, set on the side of the road amongst the cactus about three quarters of a mile from the beach and all of the potential customers was a brand new building with walls of bamboo, a roof shaked with palm fronds, a concrete floor, and an open door. Inside we found three nice ladies having lunch on one of four steel card tables. In the corner was a small bar built of stone and topped with tile. We sat at one of the other tables on folding steel chairs and ordered a beer which came nice and cold. When I asked in my poor Spanish if they sold it by the case the boss lady startled me by saying, "Yes." instead of "Si." Yep, out of the back room came two cases of Tecate in cans. It was expensive, but not as expensive as going into La Paz to get some, so we bought it and carried it back down the road. We never could figure out why they'd built their business so far from the beach -- maybe they just don't want too many customers.
Back at the boat I mixed up a batch of my Margaritas, a dangerous thing to do when you've still got dinner to fix. The ladies did all right though, fixing a beautiful batch of shrimp and having a hilarious time as they did it.
Ballandra is a very pretty cove, with several white beaches and wind carved rock formations. It's a little exposed to the west though, and today the wind was from the northwest. As a result the swell was sweeping around the point and coming into the bay in just the right direction to make us roll. We managed to work that problem though; Bob and I got down the Metz, pushed old SEA RAVEN around 'till she was pointing into the waves, and then quickly ran out with the stern hook. It held, and we were comfortable all afternoon. Kris and Bob took the Metz and went exploring while Lois and I took a nap. Just a nice place to be at the end of another splashy ride.
08:05 We roll out of the harbor and put our stern to the wind as we point the nose toward Isla San Francisco about 32 NM to the north. The waves are only three to four feet high and on our quarter, the sun was bright and warm, and visibility outstanding as we had a thoroughly enjoyable run. Bob had the fishing lines out the whole way but got nothing, not even a strike.
12:00 Into the south bay at San Francisco. The wind is still doing its thing and there's a bit of wave in the anchorage but we swing around the reef and up into the shallow sand cove and drop the hook anyway. It's time for lunch. San Francisco is a very pretty cove but also very small, not room for more than a few boats even when the wind is from the north, but today we're all alone and there's lots of room. The water is clear and the white sand bottom covered with patches of sea weed, something we've not seen in a long time. On our stern is a beautiful sandy beach and on either side is a high rocky bluff. We have our lunch, rest a while, then haul up again. We'll stop here again on the way back to La Paz.
13:45 Running again, this time across the channel toward San Evaristo. I got the nose pointed in the right direction then went below for a nap while Bob watched George, our autopilot, do the driving.
15:00 Into the bay at Evaristo. There's one other boat here, a small power cruiser named DIANA ROSE tucked into the south corner of the bay. The wind was still blowing and a low swell was rolling into the bay so we dropped our hook fairly close by, then Bob and Kris took off to do some exploring while Lois and I stayed to make sure that we hadn't gotten too close. The wind in Evaristo is never consistant, always switching around this way and that as it comes over the high bluffs around the bay. Today was no exception -- we swung back and forth but were always well clear of our neighbor.
When the "kids" got back -- they had walked the length and back of the mile long beach -- I poured our evening drink while they showered, then we turned on the radio and found that the hostilities had begun in Kuwait and Iraq. Somehow that all seems very unreal out here in this peaceful little cove. We listened for a while, then turned it off, had another great dinner of dorado, then watched a fun movie. There'll be time enough to worry about those other world affairs when we get back to it. Right now we're in our own very much nicer world.
We followed the road up and across the saddle to its end at the central part of the village near the salt ponds on the north side.
There a commemorative sign tells of the road's completion in 1983 -- before then the only access was by water. We walked around the drying ponds, which cover forty acres or, then back though the village before returning back up the road. The ponds were all filled with water and seem to be dormant right now with only one small pile of salt with forty or fifty bags sitting beside it, quite a contrast to the busy scene we'd seen three years ago in March. It almost seems that they may have limited salt operations to only that need for curing the local shark catch. Lois and Kris had brought along some hard candies which made them quite popular with the children of the village. We're talking maybe a hundred or so total population living in twenty or twenty-five houses scattered around the little palm tree oasis. Several shallow wells serve the community with water only three or four feet beneath the surface. As we passed, one of the fishermen's pickup trucks was there filling several fifty gallon plastic drums with water drawn from the main concrete lined well with a bucket. It's amazing to me that they don't even use a hand pump. Maybe with the water level so close a bucket is easier. On the way back to the boat we walked along the beach where the fishermen had just loaded their morning catch into an ice-filled U-HAUL truck, presumably for the trip to La Paz, the nearest city -- there's only one other town between here and there, a small mining community called San Juan de la Costa. They had a big crate of oranges which they said came from a ranch to the south and sold us a few for the very reasonable price of 1000 pesos per kilo, about 17 cents a pound.
Back at the boat we hauled anchor and headed across the channel toward Bahia Amortajada where we'd read you could find oysters on the roots of mangroves in a lagoon. On the way we had just a quick glimpse of a whale which surfaced just in front of the boat but then refused to come up again until we'd put our cameras away. We ran into the big, shallow bay as close as possible to the lagoon entrance, dropped our hook, and had lunch before going to the lagoon. That was a mistake -- by the time we got there The water was so low that we couldn't get the metz across the bar. Lois stayed with the ding while the rest of us waded up to the lagoon. We couldn't get far without a boat -- the water was flowing out of the lagoon in a fast moving river -- but, sure enough, we found a few small oysters hanging on the roots of the first mangrove we came to. When we got back to the boat I tried to shuck them but they were so small, and tough, that I only managed to get one open. It was small, firm, and tasty but far too much work to be worth the effort unless we can find larger ones.
The wind, which in Evaristo had been warm and gentle, had come up and the temperature had dropped to 67o, which around here is downright cool, so we stayed on the boat. Had Lamb frajitas for dinner, played Tripoley, and watched George Burns in "Eighteen Again". All-in-all a very nice day.
Back at the boat we decided to combine a little sightseeing with some fishing, hauled anchor, and headed out of the bay, at Bob's request running a little slower than our normal cruise speed. He'd hardly gotten his line out before he had a fish on, a nice little Sierra, just right for dinner. We fished the rest of the way out of the bay, around the point, up the far side of the gravel bar, and across the channel to Isla San Francisco with no more luck. Oh well, we've still got dorado in the freezer.
Running around the east side of San Francisco, we dropped into the same south cove we'd had lunch in the other day. There was one other boat here now, a Fisher '47 from Juneau which had parked well away from the beach where we dropped out hook. We settled down and were eating lunch when a third boat approached from the south looking very much like we do when running. Flopper stoppers out, splashing into the short waves came a boat called TEKA III from Portland. Later, talking to to the skipper, Phil, and some of the crew on the beach we found that the TEKA III is indeed a Bob Beebe boat, designed for ocean passage making and touring the canals of Europe. The skipper is also very much a mover. They had left from San Diego eight days ago, stopping only once in Cabo for a few hours. In ten years since finishing the boat he's been to Europe twice and up and down the coast several times, never staying anywhere very long. Barbara, his daughter-in-law whom we talked to on the beach, said she crewed for him two years ago when they left Golfito, Costa Rica and spent five days driving directly to Acapulco through 60 knot winds in the Tehuantepec. That's sure not the way we like to travel. They're now on the way to San Carlos now, planning on being there in twenty-seven hours. I told him we'd be along in a month or so.
Along toward evening Bob and I decided to get a little exercise so we ran the Metz over to the south end of the cove, parked it on the beach, and set off for the top of the mountain. It's a steep, but not hard, climb up the crumbling pumice stone hill to the top which the chart says is 689 feet. We didn't quite make the highest point because there the huge rocks are laced with deep crevices very hard for we non climbers to traverse, but we had the full benefit of the view which is about as pretty as any I've ever seen. The almost circular bay and white sand beach lay beneath us with the turquoise water at the shore gradually darkening to deep blue in the center. To the north and east is the rest of the island, Isla San Jose, and the open Sea of Cortez; to the south is the Bay of La Paz and the islands of Partida and Esparito Santos; and to the west are the layered Grand Canyon like walls of the Sierra Gigantas. It was well worth the climb.
We of course had the sierra for dinner, followed by a movie. A very nice day indeed.
While I was doing my chores I also took a better look at the source of water that has been getting into the central bilge and conclude that it's coming from the forward bilge. That's a pain! The area around and forward of the water tank is almost impossible to see, let alone get to. I found a little water under the tank, but can't tell where it is coming from. I could be from one of the two sea cocks, one of several hose fittings to the shower or sink in the head, or from the tank itself. I like to think that the latter is unlikely -- the tank is fiberglass and was laid up at the same time and in the same way as the hull. It should be hell for stout. One more thing to worry about.
Time is starting to get short, and we'd decided we'd better run on down to Partida for the night and start getting a little closer to La Paz; so, when the crew got back from a nice morning on the beach with pockets full of shells and a few agates, we hauled anchor. It was a little warmer today -- the temperature got up to a little over 70o and the wind was down a bit. They said it was really nice and warm on the beach but there was still enough of a rolling sea coming from the northeast to make me drop one foil in the water on the way. Not far out of Partida Bob, who likes to fish in a sportsmanlike manner with a pole, hooked a fish. The reel sang and he yelled for me to stop the boat because he couldn't hold the fish while we were running. I cut it back to idle with just barely enough steerage to keep our stern into the waves, and we all stood by waiting for the monster he was bringing in. He only had a twelve pound test leader on, so I got out the big salmon net. When he finally got it up to the boat what was it --- a medium sized bonito! Well, in order to save the lure I tried to net it anyway but when I pushed the net under the fish the net fell off the handle -- the bolt holding it on had rusted completely away. Well, the net is worth more than either the fish or lure, so I left Bob to work his problem and jumped in the Metz which, fortunately, we were towing. The aluminum framed net is light and floats but we were fast drifting away from it and the four foot seas hid it quickly from view. I was lucky to find it. The story ended happily --- Bob got his fish aboard, I managed to get back and over the rail without breaking my neck, and we rolled into Ensenada Grande in fine shape.
We parked in the far south anchorage with two other boats, the MARTHA ROSE from Seattle, and a big aluminum boat flying a British flag, the name of which I couldn't see. The MARTHA ROSE left shortly, and there's lots of room so we didn't feel crowded. Ensenada Grande is a very pretty anchorage. The wind has shaped the red sandstone all around the bay into weird shapes and figures -- a place to really let your imagination run wild. Bob says it looks like the Mad Hatter's Ball. I mixed a batch of Margaritas -- Kristy threw out the batch I made up yesterday, but that's another story -- and we had roast chicken for dinner. Maybe we'll try Bob's bonito tomorrow.
It had been flat calm when we drove into the bay but, as you'd expect, about the time we were ready to go ashore the wind came up. We piled into the Metz anyway, and splashed our way to the rocky beach. There wasn't enough water to get into the lagoon so we had to pull the Metz up on the rocks, no easy feat when all of us had walking shoes on -- good thing we were four. The old oyster raising canals are just as they were in our past visits; and, I guess, much as they've been since being abandoned in 1910. Hand fitted, six foot high, rock walls, some granite, some red sandstone, form a maze of canals in which the pearl oysters were raised. Now only some three foot long needle fish cruise the bottom, trapped at all but extreme high tide when broken down segments of the walls allow access to the main lagoon for a short time. On the hill above the canals are the remains of six or eight big sorting sheds -- not much left now, a few rotted scraps of wood, some square nails, bolts, clips and other steel fastenings, and the low stone foundations which outline each building. Near each shed is a big pile of the heavy pearl oyster shells, all of which are now decorated with a fine wormlike calcium growth. We can only speculate as to whether that growth represents the parasite which destroyed the industry, or whether it somehow was deposited after the oysters had been harvested. I suspect the former because we've never seen that kind of growth anywhere else.
Getting the Metz off the rocks was even tougher than getting it on. Bob and I took our shoes off and waded out to lift it over the barnacle covered big ones. Then in pushing off, he slipped and scratched the hell out of the top of his bare foot on the barnacles. We hauled him bleeding back to the boat, but a scotch soon had him feeling well again. San Gabriel is quite an open bay and we decided to move on to one a little more protected, so hauling anchor again -- sure do love that hydraulic windless -- we ran across the Canal San Lorenzo and down to Ensenada Lobos. There we found two shrimpers parked in the outer anchorage and one small sailboat in the inner. We chose to join the shrimpers who waved as we dropped our hook behind them. We'd planned on eating Bob's bonito for dinner but as Bob, Kris, and Lois sat and considered the alternative, camerones sounded better and better. So, Bob and I ran over to ask if they would sell us some shrimp. Yep -- they'd have rather had a Playboy magazine, but when we couldn't come up with that, they settled for 25,000 pesos for a kilo of medium sized, beheaded shrimp. We pigged out on camerones y chili rellenos, a much more enjoyable meal than bonito -- we'll use it for tuna fish sandwiches.
Deciding to try the new Marina Palmira, I tried to call on the radio but couldn't make contact, so we just nosed in anyway. It turned out to be first class -- concrete floating docks, locked gates, good water and power. We tied up at an open end tie with the help af a couple of kids who work the boats, then walked up to the marina office where a nice young lady checked us in and said that we could stay on our end tie if we were only going to stay for a few days. She also called and reserved a rental car for us. It's not cheap, $28.50 per day, but for a few days we'll live first class.
Bob and I got the power hooked up and were cleaning up the Metz when the people on a beautiful sailboat in the next slip showed up -- Mike and another Kristy. We got to talking and found that they had been here for two years, but are planning on heading out Wednesday, bound for ports south and the Caribbean. Well, one thing led to another and we ended up by their bringing over a couple of big pitchers of Margaritas while we marked their charts with all the good anchorages we knew of. By the time we were through with that it was 7:00 o'clock and we were feeling pretty good, so we fixed a couple of more pitchers of Margaritas. Along about eight somebody decided we'd better have some dinner so Mike called Rafael, a local taxi driver, on the VHF. Piling into his station wagon we headed for town. It was a wild night. We had a good dinner -- I think -- at a place called La Costa, then went to another joint near the Marina de La Paz where a guy played a harmonica while his lady danced. It was almost midnight before we got back to the marina and fell into the sack. I can't take very many of that kind of evening! More?