Cruising Isla Espiritu Santo with Andy and Lise

Saturday, December 10

After many weeks of anticipation, Andy and Lise arrived at our marina with a (tiny) car laden with stuff we’d been lacking, various items that you can’t obtain in La Paz. Now we know how the inhabitants of remote islands, or explorers living through the Antarctic winter, must feel when the supply ship finally arrives. Lise smoothly talked her way through Customs lugging our replacement alternator with “Reconditioned warranty replacement” written all over the box. Charlie’s care with the paperwork and our Temporary Import Permit worked! They also brought replacement reefing lines, coffee, mail, our favorite crackers, yarn and an amazing quantity of tequila.

Sunday, December 11

The next morning, after an early bedtime, they were ready to shop at the giant box store grocery with me. It was exciting to have the capacity of a car to contemplete. With it we lugged more than 30 pounds, my bike max, including a half case of beer, several bags of fruits and veggies, all the cheap limes and avocados 4 people could consume in 5 days, etc. As planned, we headed out of the marina while the wind was still under 5 knots. Leaving La Paz it’s about 7 miles of narrow channel before you round the big sandbar outside of the low, sandy peninsula known as the Mogote. Off its north shore there’s an underwater canyon. In its upwelling the enormous and endangered whale sharks are known to browse.

On our way we sailed along under jib alone, startling a huge manta ray, about 12 feet across, as it floated at the surface. Eventually we noticed pangas converging and motored over. We saw fins in on the surface and Andy jumped in. (The rest of the crew had excuses not to swim.) He and the paying customers from Mar Y Sol frolicked with the 25 foot long, slow swimming plankton eater for quite a while. Eventually Andy rejoined us remarking that the creature looked like a shark, not a whale. He was right, of course. I guess he didn’t hear its whole name before he jumped.

The wind picked up giving us a nice afternoon reach over to Isla Espiritu Santo, one of two islands across from La Paz that the government has protected as a sanctuary. We anchored in La Raza harbor, part of Ballena Bay, the only boat there.

That night Lise, our tequila connoisseur declared that we should taste the four varieties aboard. The blindfold tasting revealed that all discriminating parties disliked the Jarana. To me they all tasted like rubbing alcohol or Scotch and Jarana was the sweetest and seemed mildest. The people with taste generally gave their blessing to Don Julio.

Monday, December 12

A cloudy, calm morning for boat chores and for Lise and Andy to explore the island. They walked up a dry wash passing mangroves, and many cactus. They saw a fox sized ungulate skeleton, tiny crabs with one giant claw, a dead snake and many cool rocks. We would all like a geology lesson on this area!

We motored off to another anchorage on the northern island, Isla Partita where I dinghied around the spectacular red sandstone formations of the anchorage while Andy made his now famous chainsaw guacomole. We played Take Four after dinner. Lise is hooked!

Tuesday, Decemer 13

More cloudy and cooler than yesterday, but still calm. We powered up to Los Islotes, some guano covered rocks where we heard there was a friendly sea lion colony. Lise took about 400 pictures but nothing could really capture the delightful family life of the sea lions. When Charlie in his lycra sea lion suit and Andy went for a snorkel among them, the kids raced out to play. They rushed toward our swimmers, then flipped over and swam beneath them. The little ones can fling themselves into the air for a sommersault, but it’s hard to photograph. Meanwhile most of the big ones were sleeping, pretty much blended with the rock forms.

We dinghied through a rock arch, found colorful crabs, just above the water level, watched gulls, black vultures, pelicans and finally saw the feet of perching blue-footed bookies. They hide them in flight! The little sea lions were surfing waves over the rock ledges and bumping our dinghy bottom. What a great place!

That evening we spent at Caleta Partida, a large anchorage between the two islands where we did have the company of 10 or so other boats.

Wednesday, December 15

The morning was spent rigging our new reef lines with the kind assistance of L & A. It was supposed to be quite windy in the afternoon. We thought about going out to test our new reefing capabilities and our cutter jib, but instead took out books and read a bit. (Now Andy and Lise know what cruisers really do with all that time.) Eventually C & S roused themselves to clean the bottom, but the amazing Andy swam about a mile to the gorgeous while sand beach, jogged its length, had some exploring time, and returned, having given himself quite a workout.

Later the neighbors came over from their converted Army boat, Korean War vintage. They chatted, took A & L aboard for a tour, and gave us three Cabrilla fish for dinner! We enjoyed looking at all our trip photos after the dishes.

Thursday, December 16

All night we felt the boat swinging in gusty winds. A norther had come up as predicted, at 20-30 knots. Setting our reefs with the sweet new lines (Ph.D by Yale cordage), while still at anchor, we crossed the Sea back to La Paz in steep 6 foot waves. Lise and Andy took turns steering to practice going downwind in challenging conditions. Off Pichilingue the wind diminished. Just as we were getting ready to drop the main and power in, a grey panga came by. Uh-oh. The young men were wearing bulletproof life preservers! It was the Armada, which means Navy in Spanish. They kindly allowed us to furl the main and then the young officer boarded and looked over our papers. They were in perfect order and very colorful, thanks to the TIP.

Wonderful crew to the end, Andy and Lise drove me to the Mega, a giant supermarket where we played hide and seek in the aisles until we had all we needed, and in my case another bottle of Don Julio, pressed upon us by Lise. They were terrific company, made several boat repairs and replacements possible, cooked, entertained us, and kindly put up with our slow pace. Next for them is surfing at Todos Santos while we have a day in La Paz to get ready for the crossing to Mazatlan.