4-14-99
We left San Blas continuing north to Isla Isabela. Isla Isabela is a
magical place. We had stopped on our way south but could only stay one
day because we needed to push onto Puerto Vallarta. This time we stayed
for three days. It was wonderful....a nature lovers dream come true.
Isla Isabela is about 40 miles off the coast is just teaming with birds
and fish. There are literally thousands and thousands...maybe even
millions...of nesting birds. Frigets fill every little tree branch on
the island and are just thick soaring in the air thermals overhead.
(It's a really good idea to wear a hat anywhere near the island.)
Frigets have about a 5 to 6 foot wing span and they can soar and glide
on thermals for hours never needing to flap their wings. They are
beautiful to watch fly. The baby chicks had grown a lot since our visit
in January. Most of them were just changing from fuzz ball to the
akward stage where they start to get their feathers. When you look
around the island and see thousands of chicks (big chicks couple feet
long-adult bodies are 3 feet long, they are huge birds) thats a lot of
months to feed!
Along the rocky areas of the island in where the Bobbies nest, right on the ground. They don't bother much to make a nest. There are Blue Footed Bobbies...and we do mean BLUE...bright blue. Then there are Brown Bobbies that have bright YELLOW feet. Then there are Red Footed Bobbies. The red isn't quite as bright (but it's Sharon's favorite color, so that's alright). As we mentioned before Bobbies seem to have been created from various spare bird parts. They are a strange looking bird. They must tell each other apart..by their feet! They are a bit larger than a Sea Gull in size. They were so thick on the ground that you had to pick your steps carefully to avoid stepping on one. Some of the ckhicks were still real young but most of them were also just getting ready to feather. You could get within inches of some of the nesting pair they didn't care at all that you were there. We got some great pictures. Every once in a while as we walked along one would squwak at us warning us not to get to close.
This time on the island there was also a huge flock of thousnds of little Terns. Silver Terns we think. They are about the size of a Robin. They were all nesting in the rocks and grasses. They were all seating on eggs we didn't see any hatched chicks yet. They are a vocal bunch. As we walked through them...very careful not to step on a bird or egg. Hundereds of them were flying overhead...screatching and screaming. The noise was amazing. Wild experience. The Frigets and Bobbies are quiet compared to these guys.
The island is truely wonderful...but it was time again to move on. We set sail for Mazatlan and had an absolutely wonderful overnight sail. The winds were perfect (right on the noise of course....which seems to be the case always when sailing ...no matter where you are going!) we were able to tack our way all the way to Mazatlan. Just around sunset as we were sailing along we saw several turtles and hundreds of jumping rays. We are not sure if they are Manta Rays or not...but, huge groups of them would circle round...leaping out of the water serveral feet then slap the water as they landed. Maybe they are feeding on schools of small surface fish...or maybe they are just having fun...jumping out of the water to enjoy the sunset!
We planned to leave Mazatlan the day after Easter but got stuck for over a week! Going into Mazatlan Marina verses anchoring out ended up begin a big mistake. We had no idea (nobody warned us) that once you get in...if the swell comes up you can't get back out, regardless of the tides, there are huge breaking waves across the entire harbor entrance. It was kind of like being in "Hotel California"...you can check in anytime you like...but you can never leave! We finally escaped in a resonable break in the swell...and for brief moments it was quite a thrill as Reality turned into a submarine as we crashed through the breaking waves. Don't think we will ever visit that Marina again...anchoring out is a much better option.
Once we got out of the Marina we anchored out and had to wait an other
couple days for a good weather window to cross the Sea of Cortez. While
we waited we listened to reports from boats that didn't wait and were
doing the crossing battling 15 foot seas and 30 to 40 knot winds! We
weren't in that big of a hurry! We got our good weather window and
headed out with several other boats. The crossing took 2 days its 230
miles. The weather was just fine. If anything a little to tame at
times...because we needed to motor quite a bit. We are currently on our
final leg of the crossing 20 miles off of La Paz....sailing along
beautifully. We will be there in another couple hours.
Curt and Sheri our friends from the East Coast, North Carolina, arrived Friday evening. We hit the town with a bang! Talking a million miles an hour, catching up on all the news and drinking fishbowl size margaritas, we got off to a wild start. We danced and swaggered our way back to the boat in the wee hours of the morning. The next day we were all moving a little slow to start. We wandered through town checking out the sites.
We headed out to the islands the next morning joining in on the La Paz Race Week Regata "race" out to the islands Espiritu Santo and Partida. With nothing but a puff of a breeze the "race" was more of a drift! We saw a couple whales right off the side of the boat and a school of jumping rays. It was a beautiful day....the only bad thing was just as we were leaving the dock, Vaughn stepped down off the cockpit and landed wrong, twisting his ankle...by midday it had swelled up like a balloon...it appeared to be badly sprained...Vaughn was going to be one footed for quite a while.
We spent the night at a lovely anchorage all to ourself, did a little dingy running around. Had a beautiful no moon, star filled night...we must had seen 20 satellites as we star gazed. The following day we headed up to anchorage Ensenada Grande on Partida. We spent 3 days there...doing al kinds of snorkeling and dingy running. Curt really enjoyed spearfishing. Once we got him started he didn't want to stop! He caught us dinner first time he tried, "Hogfish" hot on the grill! Might have been beginners luck...cause he almost froze to death the next day...stayed in the water for hours and hours trying to catch dinner again...Vaughn finally pulled him out of the water at sunset. Vaughn had become very good at snorkeling with just one fin...letting his hurt ankle dangle. We called him "Uni-Boy". We all laughed, shared stories had a great time.
One of our best snorkels was out at Los Islotes a rock off the island that is a Sea Lion colony. It's kind of a low key local tourist attraction, daily boats come from La Paz to take people to swim with the Seals. They must feed them...because the Seals are really friendly. We went early before the tourist boats...as soon as the seals saw us a bunch of them jumped in the water. As we snorkeled they would swim all around us circling and playing. When you swam down in the water they would rub up against you...gracefully swimming corkscrew turns up your body! One look Curt right in the face/snorkel mask then blew bubbles right at him! Another swam right into Vaughn's face, bumped him, then darted away. There were probably 50 of them swimming around with us and an other hundred or more of them still sun themselves on the rocks. It was wild!
We spent a couple nights with the La Paz Race week folks. It gave Curt and Sheri a good feel for the cruisers community. About 50 boats were participating...we joined a big beach party potluck one night, drank beer and listened to music (and bunch of folks play musical instruments and everybody sings along). It was a lot of fun.
We headed back to La Paz and unfortunately had to say our good-byes to Curt & Sheri. We spent an evening with folks we had met (John and Diane) that have a boat the same model as ours, a FD12...we compared notes and how-to's. We stocked up then headed back up into the Sea of Cortez.
We stopped again at Partida, then Evaristo. We snorkeled the afternoon at Evaristo and were amazed at the huge schools of game fish. We have never seen so many all in one place! There where large schools of Snappers, Jacks, Pompano, Yellowtail. Huge Groupers, Bass, Cabriila, Trigger, Hogfish and Parrots....it was a fisherman’s smorggiesboard! Curt would have gone crazy! Vaughn...still "Uni-Finned" speared us dinner.
We are currently sailing north...just passing one of our favorite anchorage’s "Los Gatos" to go into new territory for us...to see what new adventures are ahead!