06-02 La Paz to Caleta PartidaOur 1st day heading for new territories. It feels good to be off the dock again and headed for new places. We are expecting to run into our friends Bob & Sherry on Nirvana, as we have communicated via e-mail and Facebook. They had just arrived the previous day in the channel at an anchorage following their crossing from Mazatlan. Sure enough, as we were leaving from La Paz we contacted them on the VHF and they were heading to Caleta Partida as well.
It was quite windy in La Paz as we were leaving and we had to stop at the fuel dock to fill two of the diesel tanks we had pretty much emptied. So, it was a little precarious getting on and off the fuel dock, but we managed. Once we were done with that we headed off to Caleta Partida. It was about a six hour trip and we arrived at 4:00 that afternoon. It is a beautiful anchorage set between the Islands of Isla Ispiritu Santo and Isla Partida. There are only fishermen camps on the low-lying shore. Quite windy conditions in the anchorage, so we put out five-to-one scope on the anchor chain. It took two tries to get the anchor hooked.
That all done, Nirvana called and invited us to a pot luck dinner on their boat with the folks from Buena Vida, Jeff & Julie, too (also on the Ha-Ha). They had buddy-boated with Buena Vida across from Mazatlan. So, it was fun to get to know them and hear stories back and forth. I made a nice vegetable & pasta dish. Julie brought a spinach salad & Sherry prepared a rice with scallop dish! Yumm!
The wind came up hard so we all scattered to our boats. Just as we got to Journey, she started dragging anchor. We started the engine and the anchor re-hooked a couple hundred yards towards the middle of the anchorage. Then we let out more scope (chain) and watched for a couple hours. Poor Dick was up every hour all night checking our position. I didn’t sleep well either, but was in bed. Sometimes these things happen.
06-03 Caleta Partida
The wind was still blowing in the morning but not quite as hard. The big power boat that was anchored by us left, so we let out some more scope. We were pretty sure we wouldn’t be going anywhere after that! Since we were both pretty tired, we just stayed aboard, tidied up the boat and rested. It is a lovely anchorage with beautiful desert mountains and white sandy beaches. We are looking forward to exploring tomorrow and maybe snorkeling. Every morning one of the fishermen from the small camp comes by the boats asking for things like shampoo, powdered juice packets, pens, batteries, etc. Sometimes he trades fish. ( We always had something to give him and I think this may be why the park ranger did not harass us for a park pass – required for the islands – as they did some of the other boats. - D)
Buena Vida called and invited us and Nirvana to potluck dinner on their boat tonight, so I made a vegetable salad with Papaya-seed dressing for that dinner. Buena Vida had traded with the fishermen for some delicious white fish, which they grilled and served with pineapple salsa. Julie also made a Pineapple upside down cake with rum. Nirvana brought an Orzo salad dish (small Greek mini-pasta). All in all a super yummy meal. The wind wasn’t too bad tonight and with the extra scope out and we both got a really good night sleep.
06-04 Caleta Partida Another beautiful day in Paradise! Nirvana was off to La Paz to get their Jellyfish suits made and will join us in the Sea as soon as they are done with that. Buena Vida headed for Isla San Francisco or San Everisto and we may catch up with them when we are done staying here. It was a very calm morning and we wanted to get to exploring before the heat rose too high.
So, we took the dinghy over to the first little beach on the north side of the bight where we were told there was a cave you could climb to. I found out that roaches can not only fly, but swim too!! EEEEUUUWWwww! They were all over the beach and rushed under our dinghy to get out of the sun. We climbed up to the cave, or should I say scrabbled up. It wasn’t much to see and didn’t go too far into the mountainside, so we scrabbled down and went further into the shallow cove beach and found that it was covered in tens of thousands of tiny one-clawed Fiddler crabs. They moved like the sea as we approached them and climbed in and out of tiny holes in the sand. We walked to where there was a sign indicating that there was a trail going up into the canyon, but it was getting too hot to attempt that. 
We took the dinghy over to the eastern beach, which was a long sandy beach and was the low point between Isla Ispiritu Santo and Isla Partida. This is also where the fishing camp is. We said hello to the fellow who comes around to the boats, walked over to the long rock wall and looked over to the other side. We could see that there was a narrow passage of water that would allow us to motor the dinghy through to the other side, so we did. Sea caves were along the Isla Partida side of the cove. It was very pretty and nice and breezy!
We went back to the boat with plans to get ready to have our friends Mary & Bill from Jade Dragon over for dinner. We met Mary in Ventura on our way down to San Diego last fall and met her husband Bill when they came to La Paz. However, while I was preparing the dinner fixin’s, we got a call from the boat Merilon with Tiki and Michael Kehir aboard. Michael belonged to HMBYC many years ago and Dick taught him to sail there 20 years ago in the adult sailing class. They have been cruising down here for 11 years. So, we invited them to dinner too. I had to make some changes to the meal to accommodate them and Tiki brought an Orzo salad to contribute. I prepared Tahitian marinated Chicken with Tropical fruit and rice (super yummy!) and Mary brought home-made garlic/parmesan loaf bread and Margaritas.We had a lovely meal, more story-sharing, catching up and getting to know “stuff”. A pleasant time was had by all.
06-05 Caleta Partida
We were going to head to Isla San Francisco on this morning, but Merilon is staying another day and we wanted to stay another day too. There were a lot of turtles swimming around in this anchorage and I wanted to float on a raft and look through my mask to see if I could see some.
Dick went and visited his old friend Michael on Merilon for a while giving me alone-time on the boat. Nice! When he returned I put my raft in the water and floated around for a bit to see if I could see any of those turtles. Unfortunately, the water was very green and murky. No turtles….bummer. (One very calm evening, when the ripples of surfacing turtles was quite obvious, I saw at least a dozen of them swimming around us. Another time we had to back off on the dinghy throttle suddenly to keep from running over one – Dive, dive. - D) We will be heading to Isla San Francisco in the morning.
06-06 Trip to Isla San FranciscoWe made the nearly four hour trip to ISF by 1:00 pm. The winds were in the 20’s coming out of the South, so we blew right on up the Sea at about 7+ knots with the jib out. We chose to stay in the Eastern bight which gave us protection from the SSW seas & winds. We were the only boat in the anchorage until late afternoon. One of the other boats moved from the other side of the island to stay here. It is a stark and beautiful desert island with many colors and rock formations. I posted an aerial shot from the cruising book. Our anchorage was just above the heel of the foot-shaped end of the island, on the upper left side of this picture. Keep in mind the picture was taken from the North, so South is up.
It is not as windy here and gets HOT in the afternoon. We cooled ourselves off in the water and got a pretty good night’s sleep.
06-07 Isla San Francisco
It was nice and cool this morning. It sure is a beautiful spot. We were trying to decide if we wanted to stay here and explore or head on up to San Evaristo tomorrow. Bob & Sherry are going to leave La Paz tomorrow and head straight here to ISF and then to San Evaristo. We plan to stay a while in San Evaristo as there is a LITTLE town there and things to explore along with a little tienda (market).
It got pretty HOT today and no breeze, so we did not get around to exploring anything here. We just tried to stay cool, played some backgammon, read, worked on my music and I actually broke out the paints and started working on a painting. I fixed a fabulous Caribbean Chicken dish (sweating profusely) with noodles and papaya for dinner after the sun was mostly down. Mmmmm yummy! By the end of the day we decided we would move on to San Evaristo tomorrow, so we took all the sunshades down that night. We finished off the night with a couple episodes of Bewitched on DVD.
06-08 Trip from ISF to San Evaristo A nice breezy morning and cool. We have been listening to the Sonrisa Net every morning at 7:30, so we listened to that again this morning before leaving for San Evaristo. We heard on the net this morning, though, that the tienda is closed for a week. However, our next destination would be Agua Verde and we heard they now have a couple of tiendas. We were hoping to get some ice there, so we had to run our icemaker when we ran the engine on the way to San Evaristo. (Interesting navigation here, the paper charts and chartplotter indicated islands that no longer existed and the islands that were there were by radar 1½ miles off the charted position, glad to have gone through this area in the daylight. In both San Evaristo and Aqua Verde, we ended anchored in what the plotter indicated to be land. The charts down here are often based on surveys performed in 1867!!!– D)
San Evaristo is a lovely little village. Not many people, but they do have a school. There are houses up in the hills as well as along the beach. It is definitely a fishing village where the panga pescaderos go fishing every day. We will have to get ourselves some fresh fish.
It was nice and breezy this afternoon, coming right off the Sea into the cove, making for a pleasant stay our first day. We were all by ourselves until late afternoon when a Moorings charter catamaran came into the anchorage, then another mono-hull and yet another mono-hull. So, we ended up having four boats in the anchorage. The Mooring charter people stopped by our boat to say hi. Two nice couples from Texas, who evidently have chartered all over the world together, including Tahiti, Greek Islands, BVI’s, Red Sea, etc. Nice folks! We will be exploring the village tomorrow.
06-09 San Evaristo
Woke up to a beautiful morning, light breezes and a hazy sky from the previous night’s light fog. We heard Bob & Sherry on the Sonrisa net this morning indicating they had just left La Paz heading for here. So, we were expecting to see them that evening. . (Bob has now talked me into becoming one of the Sonrisa net daily net controllers – I will be doing Wednesdays starting on the 20th. – D)
We went exploring on the beach starting at one end. There are quite a few goats, chickens, chicken hawks, cows and dogs. I had to give the goats some water in their bowl because it was empty and one of them took a liking to me. He nuzzled his little head against my thighs while I petted and scratched him. (Tami’s newest best friend – D) I gave half my bottle of water to a VERY pregnant dog. She drank it right out of the bottle and was my buddy after that. She followed us down the beach as we explored the shore. There is a water desalination plant here and a couple of small tiendas, of which only one is open, and quite a few homes (if you can call them that). There are a few nicer structures and some mobile homes. There is also a school on the road to the salt ponds.
We met a cute young couple, traveling with his parents (our age) who were visiting them on their 30’ boat. They loved our boat, so we invited them over to “Journey” for a tour. We were having such a nice time sharing stories, I put out some munchies and they ended up staying until about 10:00 p.m. (Four people on a 30 footer – well they did appear to get along very well. - D )
Nirvana didn’t make it by sundown, so we probably won’t see them until tomorrow.
06-10 San Evaristo
Another lovely morning with light breezes. I did some more painting, worked on the lyrics to my song list and read today. Nirvana made it today at about 4:00. So, we picked them up in our dinghy and went to shore for a while. Then we had dinner together on Journey. I fixed shredded beef quesadillas and Sherry brought a vegetable salad. It was a windless moonlit evening and the stars were outrageous! We had a great time of course laughing and talking about stories.
06-11 San Evaristo
We spent one more day in Evaristo so Bob & Sherry could do some exploring of their own and maybe snorkel. We did some more relaxing and some boat projects, then had dinner on Nirvana. Dinners are always pot luck. Sherry fixed arracherra with tortillas with roasted peppers and I fixed a vegetable dish with peas, carrots, tomatoes and potatoes. We all headed to bed early for an early departure tomorrow
. 06-12 Trip to Agua Verde
Anchor up at 9:00 a.m. we traveled through some beautiful waters between the islands and peninsula. There was no wind and the water was glassy. The mountains were spectacular all cut with lines and colored earth and lava. The mountains were cut in dramatic shapes and rocks and reefs were jutting out of the sea. It was quite warm as well. We had the fan running while under way, with all the hatches open.
We arrived in Agua Verde at about 4:00 or so. What a really pretty anchorage! There is a small village here (larger than the last two) there are even palm trees in a small area on the beach. Must be water underground. There’s a small tienda and an actual restaurant (what that means we are not yet sure). We will probably visit there tomorrow. Once we got the dinghy in the water we relaxed until we had a light dinner of hot dogs and watched a movie. Lights out!
06-13 Agua Verde
There was no wind this morning, so it was already heating up at 7:00 a.m. It is a beautiful place, our favorite so far. We had to laugh at rush hour here though. The morning started out quiet and then all of a sudden panga after panga started heading out to sea for the day. Rush hour happens again in the evening too when the pescaderos return.
Michael & Tiki on Merilon are here in the northeast anchorage so they offered to give us, Bob & Sherry a tour of the village. We all caravanned to the beach in our dinghies and walked the area. What can I say. Hot, dry, dusty, quiet and colorful. There is green here though, which means plants trees and flowers here and is unusual for up here. We discovered there is an underground aquifer here. They even have some sort of basic water distribution pumping system. There are goats, chickens, burros and horses here as well. A bit more populated than San Evaristo. We shopped at the two tiendas in town, got some fruit and freshly killed chicken pieces. We also made reservations for tomorrow night with the only “Restaurant” in town, which is a family who will cook a meal for you. According to the lady, she will be fixing fried fish, rice and beans.
We finally got to try out our new jellyfish suits when we went over to Merilon’s anchor spot and went snorkeling. Had a fun time! (There were over a dozen different types of fishes – D) The prettiest were the big black fishes with bright purple trim, orange fins and a fat white streak on their sides.
Nirvana didn’t come because they were having dinghy engine problems and Bob wanted to get that figured out. When we returned from snorkeling, we tried to start our engine to charge the batteries and it wouldn’t start. Same symptoms as air in the system. So, Dick got in the engine compartment again and our fuel filter was filthy. Fortunately there is a second filter set up ready to go and all he had to do was switch over to it. That way he can change the bad one at a more convenient time. We just had to bleed the air out of the system and it started right up.
To finish off the day, we went over to Nirvana for some libations and tostadas, I brought a super yummy cream cheese and Jalapeno Jelly dip with crackers. Nice and busy day.
06-14 Agua Verde
Another gorgeous day in Agua Verde Paradise! A quiet day, with the exception of having to change the oil filter and assisting Nirvana with their dinghy engine problem. Both his dinghy engines conked out in the same day, so we are all figuring it is dirty fuel. He bought new fuel in Mazatlan on the way up. Dick gave him some gasoline so he could check if it was a case of bad fuel or an engine problem. Our fuel was a combination of La Cruz & La Paz. It was the fuel because both engines worked on our gasoline. So we gave him a gallon to use till he can get some more, probably in Puerto Escondido.
We lounged around reading, playing computer games and napping for the most part. Buena Vida showed up this afternoon with Julie & Jeff aboard. They were just getting back from where we are about to go. They are on their way back to La Paz.
We had dinner at the “Restaurant” in town with Michael & Tiki. They were low on gas and out of cash, so we picked them up and treated them to dinner. The meal was simple, but delicious! It was breaded & deep-fried white fish of some sort. Nice and tender and juicy! It was served as promised with rice, beans and home-made tortillas. Very nice family there! Too bad my Spanish isn’t better, I would have liked to converse with them. The lady is really pleasant and her “Papa” (either father or grandfather, not sure) is a very friendly and pleasant man. We brought Michael & Tiki to Journey for some after-dinner libations before delivering them to Merilon for the night.
06-15 Agua Verde
We are anxious to see Candeleros and the new resort we hear is there. There will be internet!! Yay & a pool! There will also be a more substantial provisioning store there too. Not that we particularly need it, but I’m running low on cheese and bread so far, which was expected.
Agua Verde was beautiful this morning and already warming up. A local gal, Fatima, came by in her kayak to see if we wanted to off-load some garbage for 25 pesos a bag. We had two bags in the forward head, so YAY we off-loaded the stinky bags.
Well as cruisers plans are always “written in sand”, we got talked into staying one more day by Nirvana and Buena Vida. They said the snorkeling was pretty good over on the south anchorage and that there isn’t really any snorkeling in Candeleros. So, we stayed and snorkeled the other side of the bay. It was indeed very nice!
We all got together that evening on Buena Vida for dinner. Julie fixed sushi with salmon and dorado as well as an Asian cabbage salad aaaaaaand a chocolate/Kahlua cake. Sherry brought some delicious fresh dorado she had been given by a power boater in the cove in trade for information she gave them on the radio regarding the cove as they were coming from the South. Jeff BBQ’d it up beautifully. I brought a Tahitian Chicken casserole and some Kahlua to go with the cake. We received this home-made Kahlua with chocolate from our friends Larry & Maria as a farewell gift last summer and it was perfect for this occasion. Super Yummy!!
06-16 Trip to Bahia Candeleros
Sooooooooo, yes we left today for Bahia Candeleros. Got the boat ready after the morning net and headed for Candeleros, which is only about a 4-hr trip. More beautifully chiseled mountains, rocks jutting up out of the sea, volcanic reefs and no wind. It was a very warm passage and we were mucho calor by the time we got into the anchorage. It is yet another beautiful anchorage! Merilon was already here a day before us and Nirvana was an hour behind us. There are a couple other boats here as well.
Turns out Sherry isn’t feeling well, so she stayed on the boat while the rest of us took our dinghies to the western shore to check out a mini-mercado. It was about a quarter mile walk, but flat. It was much more stocked than the smaller tiendas we’ve seen so far up here. We picked up a pair of frozen chicken breasts, bread, onions and a couple potatoes. We’re doing alright so far in the provisioning department.
Once we put everything away, we joined Michael & Tiki at the resort. We had to check in at the front desk and get a wrist-band as if we were regular guests. They are very friendly and glad to have us spending money at their pool and restaurants. We had dinner at the sports bar restaurant (outdoors) after we cooled off in the pool, of course!
The wind had piped up while we were eating, so we zoomed back out to the boat and scurried to take the sunshade down before it got trashed. (Successfully – Yay! – shade is very important – D) It was blowing 20-25 knots steady, gusts to thirty. In anticipation of a possible all-night blow, I went to sleep on the couch while Dick sat up to watch, because we would take turns watching in that case. However, he woke me up at 10:00 to go to bed because the wind had died down. Yaaay!
06-17 Bahia Candeleros
“Dead Calm’” is the perfect expression for the weather this morning. There is supposed to be internet pumping out from the resort, so Dick worked on getting our internet antenna and cable hooked up. There seemed to be a problem, so it took a while but he was successful. So, yay we can touch base with everyone!! We made some phone calls, checked e-mails, did some “facebooking”. Got to talk to my Dad on Father’s Day!! It was a nice surprise for him. The Skype is working okay to a land line, but not too good on a cell phone. It was still difficult talking to the land line, but it was nice to be able to say hello.
We tried to start the motor this morning and we experienced the same symptoms of air in the diesel system again. So Dick had to go back into the engine compartment AGAIN and bleed the air out. We are not yet sure what is causing that and are hoping it was just residual air somewhere from before. We’ll see.
We managed to get some messages out and e-mails written. I also got the blog done so I could send it out tomorrow. Just have to upload pictures for it. Will do that in the morning. The next time we blog will probably be in La Paz in early July.
We decided not to go into the resort today as most of the day slipped away.
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