Back to Isla Espiritu Santo

Originally our plan was to go North from Isla San Francisco.  The winds, however, had other plans for us.  Our final day on the island greeted us with 20-30 knot winds.  We still managed to paddle the kayaks to shore since coming back to the boat was a downwind run.  Rich did a little flyfishing and caught 6 fish despite the wind.  The tally was two small rooster fish, one puffer fish, two needle fish and a small rockfish.  All were released unharmed except for the hole in their lip. 

Our favorite spot on Isla Partida

Much of the sand here is really thousands of small shells.

The next day we headed south again with the swell and the wind back to Isla Partida and our favorite spot in Ensenada Grande.  We did a little kayaking, and in the morning, headed down to Isla Espiritu Santo.  We found a nice deserted anchorage at Puerto Ballena where there was actually a small reef under the amazing cliff we were anchored next to.  The anchorage was sheltered from the north winds that were expected for the next couple of days.

A large pod of dolphins came into the anchorage for breakfast.

The only negative aspect of this particular anchorage is that there are some mangroves nearby.  Mangroves mean Bobos.  These are little black non-biting flies that like to get in your mouth, eyes, nose, basically everywhere.  They eventually drive you to stay inside a screened area.  Because of this and the forcasted south wind the next day, we decided to head to an anchorage with more protection from the south.  Our destination was Puerto Balandra.  On the way we passed our friends on Grace.  The beach we are headed for is behind them.







There was a giant sand bar to cross to get to the beach.

This is the beach with the famous El Hongo rock.  It is a mushroom shaped rock that actually fell over a few years ago and they put it back up because it is such a tourist attraction.  There is even a statue of the rock outside the cathedral in town.

Our boat is in the distance under El Hongo.

There were a lot of locals here just wading around the giant sand bar.  The kayak rental on the beach was not doing any business because you had to drag the kayak about a quarter mile to get it to the water. 

Red sky at night, sailors delight?  Well, not so much this time.  The predicted south wind started up at about 11 pm.  The boat swung 180 degrees and started slowly dragging anchor.  Rich let out more scope and sat anchor watch all night.  While he stopped the dragging, he didn't get much sleep.  In the morning the wind was still blowing 20-25 knots from the south but the swell was only a couple of feet so we decided to head back to the marina which was only a couple hours away.  Our main goal of course was that we were completely out of beer and wine after 10 days out, and had just finished the last of any fresh food.  We still had weeks of reserve food on board, but we were out of beer!  Before noon we were tied up in the nice calm marina and headed to the grocery store.  You have to have priorities when cruising.  Oh, and Cathy has gotten used to having someone else do our laundry.  So we have two priorities, beer and laundry.  This retirement stuff is very demanding.