Full Moon Party!

Masquerade is now in the summer cruising grounds for sailors nuts enough to spend a summer in the Sea Of Cortez. Bahia de los Angeles (Bay of Los Angeles or BLA) consists of the bay itself and numerous small islands with numerous anchorages. There is one small village where we can get provisions (not cheap) and internet connectivity (not fast). There is a nice hurricane hole here where everyone goes into to hide out when necessary.
Speaking of hurricanes, this has been a really slow year for pacific hurricanes (so far). We like this! Hurricane season is from June til Mid November, and there are on average 17 named storms. This year we have had only 7 named storms so far and none have been anywhere near the Sea of Cortez. Everyday we listen to the weather to hear what is going on, and keep our fingers crossed. There is a good place to hide and there are several cruisers here who have been doing this for around 10 years, so they
know the procedures for getting through unharmed.

We had a great party the other day here at the south end of the bay called La Mona. The party is held on the full moon because the tides are the highest. When the tides are extra high the lagoon/estuary fills up, then when the tide drops the outflow is like a small river. Everyone can then jump in and ride the flow back out into the bay. We had around 25 boats show up (out of about 37 spending the summer here) and everyone pretty much hung out in the water up to their necks and had a good time. See
the new pictures page.
There are also a few pictures from the underwater camera housing, these should get better with practice and clearer water. Right now I only seem to get decent pictures of non-moving subjects. I also included a picture of Willie the boat cat after his swim!

Another fine spinnaker run!

We had a little problem with some spam settings on our email recently. If anyone has sent us email to the radio or winlink address and we did not respond it may be that we did not receive it. If you had problems with bouncing or lack of reply, please try again. Sorry for any problems.

We are now at Isla Partida, one of the Midriff islands in the Sea of Cortez. We have had several nice days sailing recently. The trips have been short (15-20 miles) and there has been a nice following wind just perfect for the spinnaker. Each day has started out light but the wind has built each day till we are really moving along nicely. Great fun, and completely different from Seattle where it seemed the wind was always from the wrong direction.
We have been doing a lot of snorkeling lately. Some friends offered to take me spear fishing with them so I finally pulled the Hawaiian sling and wiped off the dust. We went out to the edge of the bay and dove out where some rocks are. I certainly need some practice but I was able to get one. Bill and Bernie each managed to get several in the same time, and bigger too. I am going to claim that that was due to each of them having an actual spear gun, rather than my complete incompetence. Bill from
Moon Hunter got a 50 pound grouper the other day, I am way to chicken to go after a fish that size! It was fun and I did learn some. The next time out I hit more fish and less rocks! Should be even more fun when I figure out which fish are good eating and which aren't. It appears that the better tasting fish are also more skittish and run away. Willie the boat cat fully endorses any and all fishing. Speaking of Willie, He managed to fall of the boat a few days ago. We had company over so we were
all sitting outside in the cockpit when we heard his yelping. We looked over to see the cat finish swimming down one side, and around the stern. I tried to get him to come to his escape rope that we hang over for him but he decided to grab onto V'Ger's inflatable dinghy instead. I climbed down to get him to save the cat and possibly the dinghy as well. Good news was that both the cat and the boat are fine (photo to follow soon).

Little San Francisco

We are anchored in San Francisquito. We had a nice sail today with wind starting off light and building in the afternoon. We started sailing at 2 knots and ended going over 7 knots with the spinnaker up all day. Lots of fun. We nearly caught a seabird when suddenly every bird within 10 miles decided that that our fishing lure looked very appetizing. It looked like a hundred birds were diving after the lure, one after another in a constant series of splashes. I had to pull in the lure, and was amazed
that I did not bring in a bird on it. It was amazing that that many birds would be interested in a single fish.
We are going to have a few friends over tonight for drinks and birthday cake. It is quite a coincidence, two days ago it was Michelle's birthday on Momo, Today is mine, and Tomorrow is Casey's on V'Ger. We will be eating a lot of cake.

Chubasco!

We finally are out of Santa Rosalia after about a month. We left the dock and moved over to Isla San Marcos about 10 miles away. It is really nice to be anchored out again. It is quiet as we are the only boat here, and we can swim in the water again. The bay is names Los Arcos as there are some sea caves in the rocky shore. We swam over to these from the boat and swam into one, and through another that opens up to a little canyon on the far side. We went through then rested on the beach on the far
side, then headed back to the boat. I finally got out the underwater housing for my digital camera. It was a little nervous about taking the camera underwater, but it worked fine. However I need some practice getting decent pictures underwater. Only 3 or 4 of the 30+ pictures are worth keeping, I will upload some next time I get internet access.
We got our first Chubasco here at San Marcos. Chubascos are thunderstorms that usually come from the mainland side and cross the sea to the baja side. These come with high winds and usually at night. We had often seen lightening in the clouds in the far distance, but this night they were getting closer. By midnight they close enough to see the individual strike and hear the thunder. The wind speed was also rising so Cindy and I decided to batten down the hatches! We removed the sun shade and made
sure that everything was secured. The storm continued to get closer and lightening was now all around us and lit up the entire island, the wind blew in the 30 knot range with gusts to 40 and rain also. We learned that 40 knot winds can gusts can get our dinghy airborne (there was no outboard or gas tank inside at the time). The worst was over in about an hour but the storm continued for several hours, not much sleep for us that night. These storms are fairly common in the sea of Cortez in the summer
so we can look forward to seeing more.

Short update before sending this out. We have moved north to Trinity Cove, about 50 miles from San Marcos. We have caught up to a few boats we know here Momo and Moon Hunter. This morning Bernie and Bill took me out to try out my spear/sling which has only been gathering dust so far. We took a dinghy out to the rocks to look for some fish. Plenty of fish but also a lot of current. I struck out but the other two both got a fish. We moved over where the was less current and we hoped warmer water. Here
I finally got a fish, of course the other guys got several, maybe I can blame it on the fact that they have spearguns rather than on my inexperience :-). Bill kept coming back with these huge groupers. I could not even find any, much less catch one! Michelle has now off with Cindy to show her how to look for clams! We will be heading over to Momo for dinner tonight to help celebrate Michelle's birthday. it is a tough life staying so busy!

More from Santa Rosalia...

We have been at the marina for almost a month now, and are ready to head out. We had not planned to stay this long but plans change. We now have a new set of batteries (Thanks to V’Ger) and are ready for the summer. We have finished quite a few jobs, more sewing and other installs (shower connection in the cockpit and more fans).

Santa Rosalia was built as a company town for a mining operation run by the French. The building materials for the town were all shipped in, so many of the buildings are wood rather than concrete like the rest of the Baja. The town definitely has a different feel than other places.  The town is proud of the past and there is a museum and there are trains and other mining equipment around town as displays. The church in town has an interesting history. It was designed by Gustav Eiffel for a worlds  fair in Belgium, the building is a pre-fab design made from metal. It was bought by the mining company dismantled, shipped to Mexico (on a sailing ship), and reassembled.   There are photos around town of the harbor filled with schooners and square riggers. These brought coal from England and returned to Europe with copper. The old smelter is in ruins but still stands neat the harbor. There has been an effort to fix up the area, but as seems typical with Mexico, it is only half done. There is a nice malecon area, with a tiled walk way and lights, but the old buildings are run down and falling to ruin (some would be quite nice if restored). Near the smelter they installed tile walks, lights, landscaping, but the smelter buildings are full of trash and broken windows.

In my last update I mentioned the Palapa of Knowledge, and as appropriate I gained some knowledge there. The original palapa was removed when they built the nice malecon. The current palapa is not actually a palapa at all, it is one of the old wood buildings that is in a state of disrepair. One end of the building is usable and serves as the marina office/hangout.

From here we will make a short trip out to Isla San Marcos, there are supposed to be some interesting caves to explore by dinghy and by snorkel. Should be fun. It will also be nice to get out where there should be a nice breeze. The last few days the humidity has been up over 75% so we have been hot and sticky.