Baja 1-28-2011

Hello, we are back in Puerto Escondido after cruising out and around several islands in the area. The area is a national park and is protected as a nature preserve. They try to have people not bring any non native species of cooties and critters ashore, but there does not seem to be any enforcement of any kind. We saw signs pointing out the rules on the shores of the popular bays , and there is supposed to be a fee for a park pass which we would have been glad to buy, but could find nowhere either in town or out and about where we could buy one. We had been told that there are park rangers out and around and we could get a pass from them but we saw no one. . the islands are uninhabited except for on Isla Carmen there is the site of an old town where they used to process salt in huge low-lying evaporation ponds and then scooped it up and shipped it all over the world. It shut down for some reason in the 80s and now there is a small but nice hunting lodge there. The park has introduced desert bighorn sheep on the island as an incubator for planting them in other areas in baja and I guess they let a few hunters go after them from time to time.

It is a beautiful wild place, very dry, no permanent water anywhere that we know of, covered with thick low prickly bushes and cactuses, and very few trails. Walking about off trail is almost impossible, as the thorns on these bushes would tear you apart in 20 yards. The shorelines are rugged cliffs interspersed with very nice sandy or gravel beaches. The land appears bleak and dry and barren, but there is abundant life is in the water. The water is clear and clean. We could see the bottom easily in 25 feet of water. One time I dropped a spoon out of the boat and I could see it clearly laying there out of reach on the bottom….. Snorkeling along the rocky beaches and reefs is a visual treat, with millions of reef fishes of every kind and shape and color in rich abundance. One day we had a school of about a dozen dolphins playing along with us as we sailed, and we saw 2 blue whales spouting off in the distance .

Back in Escondido (the first time) we had met a young couple from Moab, Utah, Derrick and Cynde, and we sailed around with them for a few days. They had been living in a yurt about 50 miles out of moab, and were here in Mexico with a small 18 foot sailboat. We joined up with them again at Bahia (bay) Marquer over on Isla Carmen, and sailed along with them up to Bahia Ballandra on the same island. We hiked with them on a trail from there to the Bahia Salina (where they mined that salt back in the day.) It was a 5 mile hike (each way) up and over a very steep mountain, and we gladly took a swim in the beautiful water off the white sand beaches of bahia Salinas. The remains of the old salt processing operations were still there but crumbling away. It looked like those old scenes in western movies where there are a few ragged adobe walls left with no roofs. The scene was quite surreal with old wagon carts in the yard with cactus growing in the cargo beds, sitting next to an old abandoned diesel forklift… with cactus growing up through the seat cushions…weird. There was a very old church still standing, in good repair and in use, (I guess by the hunters and few people who live there to work for them) with a few wooden benches, pictures on the walls, and an altar up front with a perfectly clean and fresh white cloth on it with fresh candles and flowers.

Back at Ballandra there was a camp of Mexican fisherman staying there and Cynde went over and bargain for a few huge fillets of yellowtail tuna they had just caught. I cooked my portion, the others ate theirs raw as sushi with wasabi paste and raved it was the best they had ever had.

The next day we parted company, Derrick and Cyndy heading off to another nearby island, Steve and I headed up and around the north end of isla Carmen. It was a windy day and we had a bit of sailing adventure for a few miles as we beat against the wind until we rounded the far point into calmer conditions. I think it was the most challenging sailing we both (Steve and I) had ever been in, but the boat handled well, and our practicing paid off and we had no problems we couldn’t handle. We anchored for the next few nights in Bahia Perico, near Bahia Salinas., and then a few days at Bahia Colorada, where we saw some Mexican men hookah diving out of a small boat nearby (hookah is a sort of diving gear with an air pump in the boat and long tubes going down to the divers, like scuba only no tanks, just the tube connecting them to the air supply. Very common down here.) they were bringing up "caracol" a type of huge snail over 6 inches across, and we bought a kilo (over 2 pounds) from them. There were 6 in the bag, Each one was a big chuck of meat , and We got on the radio and asked if anyone had any ideas of how to prepare them and we tried every way possible , raw sushi, grilled, sautéed with butter, but our all time favorite was in a potato chowder with tons of onions, carrots, garlic and pepper. Yummers. We made a huge batch and I am looking forward to finishing off the leftovers as soon as I finish this letter!

Then we moved over to Honeymoon cove on isla Danzante ("the island of dancers"). We ran into a guy on a boat named Joel Santarone from Boise idaho who runs a company that had just made a custom tiller for my own boat No bad Days just before Christmas!. Small world eh? (he also made the new rudder and tiller for my little Sirocco a few years ago. He does really good work and his own boat was done very nicely.as you can imagine)

We also met and spent the day visiting with Mike and Karen Riley, a very nice couple who first sailed around the world in a 24 foot boat with no engine, and are now living on a 41 footer that they has raised their son Falcon on (he is 18 now) as they sailed around the world the second time!. You know how people make little pencil marks on a door jam to record the height of their kids every year as they grow? They had that on their mast, from the time he was old enough to stand and be measured (age 3, I think) until he was 16 and he left the boat to go chase girls on land. (he was taller than dad at that point…)They are very down to earth "do-it-yourself’ type of people, figuring out how to get really cool things done on their boat with random pieces , parts and materials that they scrounge for cheap wherever they happen to be in the world. They wrote several books which they print and bind right there on their boat, and I bought several, (of course!).

So our plans now are to hang here in Escondido again for a few days, get provisioned, and start heading back up the coast towards Santa Rosalia, where we will then sail back across to San Carlos and head home by car (and bus) by the end of February. It probably wont take that long , but this time of year we have to allow time to sit snug for a few days if a storm blows in and we can’t travel safely. You will all be glad to know that we listen to the weather reports every day and plan our travel very cautiously. We are not brave fellers at all. Sort of chicken actually!