Rain?

The weather has been different this summer as opposed to 2 years ago when we were here. We have had rain 4 or 5 times already, compared to maybe twice the entire summer. Nothing hard only light rain, just enough to make us close the hatches (and cut off the cooling breeze). Last night(early this morning) we watched the lightening off in the distance, and made sure we were prepared for a thunderstorm if it headed our way. It passed between us and Loreto which is only about 10 miles away. It is nice in that it does help wash some of the salt off the boat. I am not sure if this is abnormal weather or if it is just because we are further south for this time of year than last time.
We are now anchored at Marquer on Isla Carmen. A good spot for south or east winds, and a nice bay. There are 6 of us sailboats and 1 huge powerboat. Still some overcast skies so we may see more thunderstorms, keeps the temp down a bit, but doesn't help with the humidity.

A few days ago at Candelero Chico we went squid fishing one night. Our friends on Jacaranda had told us that they had seen schools of them earlier and had caught some themselves. We dropped over a glow-in-the-dark squid lure that Cindy had found beachcombing. We jigged for a while, but had no luck. Just before giving up we got a hit! We pulled up the lure and brought up a bright red squid. It was about 1.5 or 2 ft long, and would shoot out jets of water and ink as we pulled it up. We dropped the little monster in a bucket and then hestitated, not knowing what to do next. We had never cleaned one before and certainly not in the dark. Cindy looked in her books then we decided to put it in the fridge till morning. The next morning Chuck on Jacaranda very graciously offered to come over and show us how to clean a squid. He quickly demonstrated how to turn it into a nice calamari steak, very cool, and easier than fileting a fish. A delicious fried calamari dinner has insured that we will try that lure again sometime soon.

Back to the Baja

Masquerade is now anchored in the lovely Agua Verde cove. We made it out of Mazatlan, spent a day at Isla Venados to get out sea legs, then made our crossing. The crossing was a good one, we sailed most of the way with southwest to southeast winds. We needed to motorsail when the winds were light, but that gave time to make water and help top up the tanks. The crossing took about 54 hours for about 280 miles. Out granddaughter Mysti helped us out on watches and got to watch dolphins playing in the bow wave.
We will spend a few days here, swimming and hiking, then we will head up to Juancalito for a 4th of July celebration. We plan on spending a few weeks around the islands near Puerto Escondido/Loreto as we missed most of these islands the lst time we summered in the Sea Of Cortez.