Pulpito

Everyone comes to breakfast off Punta Teresa and Punta Pulpito...we saw three pods of dolphin, hundreds of pelicans, dozens of frigate birds, uncountable gulls, and eight commercial fishing boats. The fish here are plentiful.

Loreto

In 1697, Jesuit missionaries established the first mission in the Californias, Nuestra Senora de Loreto. Despite resistance from indigenous residents, the mission survived, even flourished. The town today is a mix of the colonial center, focused around the mission church, tourist shops, hotels and restaurants, and local businesses and residences.





We visited the Sunday farmer’s market at the edge of town, stocked up on mangoes, strawberries, and oranges, and wandered through the historic center, museum and grounds of the iglesia antigua. Mass was in session, so we only looked in.

Carmen Hike

Anchored in Bahia Ballandra on Isla del Carmen, we were swarmed with bees. Non-aggressive, but noisy, they drank two gallons of fresh water from a bucket on the aft deck! Rather than be confined to the cabin below, we took a hike across the island to visit the ghost town of Salinas, evacuated when the salt mining closed in 1983.


Isla Carmen hike photos

The contrast between Punta Nopolo Sur and Punta Nopolo Norte is striking. In the south, there is a tiny village, where entire families (e.g., mom, dad, and four-year-old daughter) go out in the panga to fish, where the same families have been fishing for generations. Life is hard and at a simple, subsistence level.

Nopolo Norte boasts a posh resort; near the Loreto airport, a development has filled in a wetland estuary, covering it with an 18-hole golf course. Condominiums and hotels are tastefully landscaped with palms and bougainvillea, and new construction runs rampant.

Recognizing the Sea of Cortez as a finite, irreplaceable resource, Mexico is making efforts to control its use, though heavy fishing, especially with the use of nets, continues to take a serious toll.

Tourism is touted as an alternative industry, but it presents its own contradictions… economic growth and destruction of natural environments; lifestyle changes and options that may be beyond the means of most local residents; unanticipated changes, some welcome, others not. When the fertilizer used to keep the golf course green, for example, runs off into the sea…where will the fish that have been saved from the nets go?

Dolphin Pod

See!? We did try it again!

Escondido

Marina Singlar in Puerto Escondido puts us on a mooring ball, where we wait through a couple of days of hot weather and 25-30+ knot winds. There were reports on the single-side-band net this morning (5/22/08) of gusts to 55 knots in Bahia Agua Verde last night and 18-foot seas near San Carlos! The down-time was spent scraping varnish, reading a lot, and taking the dinghy into shore for a beer at the local resort, where we met a couple from New Zealand, traveling by land, who were lamenting the heat…we suggested they drive across the mountains to San Carlos in Magdalena Bay and see if they could hire a panga to go out whale-watching.

on the move again

We left La Paz May 16, headed north to San Carlos in the Sea of Cortez. Exploring the islands along the way will be our primary agenda.

Bahia Agua Verde was "home" until early on May 20th, when we set off under clear, sunny skies, with 82-degree air temperature, and light winds from shore. It was a cozy little bay with some good snorkeling. The variety of fish and sea life exceeded our expectations, though the water was a bit murky. Beautiful King Angel fish…hundreds of sergeant majors, cabrillos, wrasses, delicate sea fans and sponges, even a couple of chocolate-chip starfish.

Out in the channel, the opportunity again presented itself and we faced anew the challenge of successfully photographing passing dolphins…only to fail miserably. As soon as we get the camera out, they go away, so we’ve decided to just enjoy their antics, though I’m sure we’ll try again to get them on film.







The wind picked up locally as we went north, and we had 35 knots trying to sail behind Isla Cosme in search of a hot springs. There’s a reef back there and we crossed a shallow patch (went from 95 feet depth to 20 feet in an instant), so, given the winds and our lack of familiarity with the area, we reversed direction, out into the channel and continued north.

Later in the afternoon, after an aborted attempt to anchor in Honeymoon Bay on Isla Danzante (again, unsettling winds and shallow shelves that left us little room to swing), we crossed over to Puerto Escondido on the peninsula. The anchor windlass is giving us trouble, too. It was impossible for me to grind it in, making an anchorage where we might need to move quickly out of the question. It was a full day of not having much success at whatever we tried!

Fore runner to the panga

Not so many years ago, the fishermen of the Sea of Cortez used sailing canoas to ply their trade. In the past 30 years, these have given way to pangas, more sea-worthy vessels, but still open to the wind and waves; fishing remains perilous…”trabajo duro, peligroso, y malpagado”…”hard, dangerous, and poorly-paid work,” as one panguero told us.

San Diego visit

For two-plus weeks, Ardy visited Miles, Liz, and Philip in San Diego. Philip was training for his race in Russia on May 11th; Liz was working every day; Miles needed someone to play with. The adults talked lots, read, played Scrabble, cooked, ate, biked, ran, visited with friends, and went for long walks. Miles learned to crawl proficiently, celebrated his 10th month, cut two more teeth (that makes 8 so far), and (mostly) slept through the night from 7:00PM to 6:30AM.



Every morning, Miles and I spent time in the garden...the first visit was to the bottle-brush tree in full bloom, where three particular blossoms needed gentle stroking; then the cacti, just beginning to bloom; and finally, after passing the vegetable patch, we settled in the hammock, where several toys brought along needed to be dropped over the side, picked up, dropped again, always being there when we looked over the edge to investigate.

One evening we went with Liz to a special twilight barbeque of her out-rigger rowing group. Liz worked registration, Miles charmed everyone. Grandma had fun.