Under Sail

Finally, thanks to Maja, a photo of Arctic Tern under sail.

Don't Put Too Much Faith in Your Chart Plotter

Chart Plotter shows us passing right through the island

Isla Gallina was actually a few hundred yards to the east of the boat

Spent a few days last week visiting the islands of Espiritu Santo and Partida. Beautiful anchorages and lots of visibility. Did a little snorkeling, lots of colorful fishes.

Hurricane season is about officially over, we were lucky, no storms crossed our path at all. We were told by one of the locals that the arrival of the bright yellow butterflies, mariposas amarillas, signals the end of the hurricane season and we started seeing those a couple weeks ago. It's starting to cool down especially at night, and this is indicated by the fact that the cat has returned to his habit of sleeping with us, which he hasn't down since rounding the cape back in August. I hope this also means that he's going to stop shedding. They also say that October is the best month for diving with visibilities of up to 100'.

I've been working on getting my Scuba Certification, so far it's been a lot easier than I imagined it would be. Would have been done by now if I hadn't caught a nasty cold, waiting for my head to clear up so I can continue with the training. Being underwater and seeing what's around you is a much better feeling than being on top of the water and having no idea what's under neath.

Isla Partida

Morning sun comes up between the two islands, lighting up this east facing cliff on the west side of Isla Partida

Isla Espiritu Santo

Isla Gallo and Espiritu Santo in the background

Pizza!!

Who would of thought that it would be possible to find better pizza in Mexico than you can in most places in California?

The other day we had to make a trip to visit the US consulate in Cabo San Lucas, so we rented a car and made the drive down there. Trying to find the building the consulate was is was a bit of a trick, we got some help from a friendly waiter at a nearby restaurant who actually was nice enough to walk over there with us. The visit took all of 5 minutes, we were done with our mission. We went back to the restaurant for a drink and to thank the guy who helped us out, figured we take him up on the 2 for 1 drink special he offered us. We ordered a couple pina coladas and 2 tacos, we got 2 small ass glasses with a watered down pina colada that didn't taste like it had any alcohol in it at all and 2 crappy little tacos and that came to $17! Some kind of rape the tourist special we fell for. We decided again that we really don't like Cabo.

We took the scenic route back to La Paz, goes along the coast and then up through the mountains. Someone had told us about a pizza place that they liked in El Triunfo. El Triunfo was the site of a gold mining boom back at the turn of the last century and at one time had over 4000 residents. It now has less than 400. You can see the ruins of the old mill and the streets are paved with stones. There's a little pizza place there called Caffe El Triunfo.

Caffe El Triunfo

As we're driving up the mountain to get to this place it starts pouring rain, doesn't seem like it's going to let up anytime soon. We see a sign for pizza and figure that must be the place, pull off the main road and down a side street, find a place to park, get drenched while running from the car, all while hoping that the place is actually open. A women comes out, she's not sure if they are open or not, she goes back to get the owner/chef, he comes out and says yeah I guess, but it might take awhile we're having a bit of problem with all the water that's getting into the kitchen. We weren't planning on going anywhere until the rain let up anyway, it's not like we're in a hurry, so we said we'd wait. 

We ordered a pepperoni pizza and a couple beers. Sat down and watched the rain, with the thunder coming just a second or 2  after the lightening. Moments later he brings out a pizza, hot out of the wood-fired oven out back, it smelled so good. Turned out he already had one cooking that he'd planned on eating himself. We hadn't had pizza in a couple months and even longer since we'd had a good one. It was so good with excellent pepperoni, cheese and a fresh tomato sauce, we ordered another one.

They also bake bread in that wood-fired oven

So while we're waiting for the next pizza to come out he invites us out back to see the arroyo out behind the restaurant. The rain was so heavy that it was roaring with muddy water. 

We also get to check out the real wood-fired oven, not like those fake wood (actually gas) fired ovens they use in the states. 

The guy who owns the place said he's been in Mexico for over 30 years and trained as a chef in Italy. While we were there, 3 ladies came in who had driven all the way from Todos Santos just for a piece of pizza and a slice of pie. If I'd known they had pie I would of skipped that 2nd pizza, but they didn't bring it out until after we'd already ordered. 

Waiting for the rain to stop

Rain finally stopped and we were thoroughly stuffed, and we headed to La Paz. Luckily these roads now have culverts and bridges or the roads probably would of been washed out and we probably would of had to stay the night.

A couple nights ago we went and tried out a La Paz pizza joint and were again surprised at how good it was. 

Tony's was recommended to us by a couple we met here from Australia, she used to work as a gourmet chef, so we thought we could probably trust their judgment. We ordered the house pizza which had pepperoni, mushrooms, olives and fresh basil. It was also very good and at a very reasonable price too. The smell of the fresh basil we he brought it to the table was just heaven. 

As we're sitting there eating, we notice that all Tony's tables are full and that there are several empty tables at the 3 neighboring restaurants. The waitress starts sitting people at the other tables, that just cracked us up, not something you'd get away with in most places, at least it made everyone took busy.

Caleta Lobos

Last weekend we bought a big bag of ice and decided to get out of town for a couple days to find somewhere a bit more peaceful. We headed for the anchorages on the east side of the bay about 10 or so miles from here. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to escape the heat by being out on the water. We found ourselves in the middle of a migration of the most brilliant yellow butterflies I have ever seen. The fishing lines out in hopes of catching a dorado and we're just about to pass Punta Colorado when we saw a bunch of commotion in the water off to starboard. Lots of small fish were flying out of the water, something was obviously chasing them, a whole lot of splashing going on. At first, Jim thought maybe it was a marlin. I could see something was swimming towards us, so I climbed up on the doghouse and saw a whale shark! It was a youngster, only about 10' long (fully grown they can go to 40-50' and weigh over 30 tons). They swim so slowly, we actually had to slow the boat down as it passed behind us so we wouldn't snag it with the fishing lures. Since I was a little girl, I was always fascinated by whale sharks, the biggest fish in the sea. So awesome that I finally got to see one!

We anchored in Caleta Lobos, went for a swim, the water was so nice. Lots of little fish swimming around, some of them flying out of the water trying to escape whatever it was down there trying to eat them. There was one other boat in there with us, Greek guy from Brooklyn, we invited him over and made some pina coladas with some of that ice we bought.

Yellow-Crowned Night Herron

It was so nice and quite that night, no barking dogs or crowing roosters, no sirens or car alarms going off, no revving engines (the Abaroa's who own the boatyard we've been anchored in front of are also into racing cars) or pongas roaring by. The only thing that woke us up was the bright light of the full moon.

Next morning Jim decided he was finally going to tackle the boat's stability problem. When we left San Francisco over a year ago, we were fully loaded. We had a year's supply of food, drinks and booze. Well we've been slowly consuming all that stuff plus getting rid of some of the tools, hardly any really, Jim likes his tools. Anyway, lightening up the boat has made it much more unstable than it used to be causing it to roll quite a bit at anchor and when underway making things quite uncomfortable. So he moved a half ton of lead that was near the front of the boat and moved it back towards the center and lower in the bilge, then he moved 350' of chain up to where the lead had been. Lot of work, especially in this heat, but it was worth it. Now when a ponga goes by (for some reason they always want to come right through the anchorage when it's easier for them to go around) the boat only move slightly, dishes don't rattle, things don't go flying off the table.

Half Ton of Lead Pigs

After working up quite a sweat we headed back to the water did some swimming and tried out the snorkeling gear. Then I took the dinghy to show and went for a short hike, could of been a much longer hike had it not been so hot and I wasn't trying to hike around cactus in the desert with flip flops. Anyway I got a couple good photos of some the plant life. I love the desert with all it's fierceness.

Wish we could of just stayed out there, but on Sunday we returned to La Paz as there are a couple more things that we have to take care of before we can actually get out of this place. Not that it's a bad place to be but so many come here and never leave. So I hope we can before they catch us in their nets and keep us from leaving, like what's happened to so many of them.