Honeymoon Cove

On this wonderful adventure this past year I have trying to take that one in a million shot of our boat in a beautiful anchorage. I am finding that to be much more difficult than I imagined because you just can't capture the color of the water and our entire boat in the same shot. I have even made Rog climb rocks to try to capture THE SHOT I want. When we were in Honeymoon Cove we found the beautiful water, no other boats and we anchored in the absolute middle of the anchorage. Of course by the time we climbed the rocks the boat had drifted out of the center and the sun was not at the same angle! I have posted some of my attempts at the perfect picture, they show a beautiful anchorage or all boat.

I would love to hear back about favorite shots

Next stop Loretto

I can not leave Isla Coronados without posting more pictures. This has truly been the most beautiful spot so far. Water is warm enough that Rog could get the Hooka out and clean the bottom of the boat. I took fun swims off the beach and off the back of the boat. Wealso explored all the little coves and found some to be filled with fish.

I talked Rog into a nice hike, did not try to go up the mountain, and found a great vista to take pictures of the anchorage. It is amazing that the plants can look so dead but are just waiting for the summer rains to turn them green

I will put the rest of my shots over on a slide show. There we just too many shots to get everything on the blog. Once we get a bit of ice and a few veggies we will be off again. We think we will spend a day or two in Honeymoon Cove before heading to Los Gatos and Agua Verde. We are hunting for the just picked lobsters we have heard so much about.

just a tease

We are currently anchored off Loreto at the small island of Isla Coronados. The picture is really not doing justice to the beauty of the water and sandy beach but I will keep taking pictures until I find just the right one.

Tomorrow I hope to take a hike further up the hill. You notice I said "hope"

Culinary delights all in one Day

We have arrived in our most northern port for this season and have fallen in love with Santa Rosalia with her charming homes, beautiful church and gracious inhabitants. On arriving in port our harbor master insisted that we eat breakfast at the beautiful but very old Hotel Francis so on our last day in town we started our culinary experience with delicious ham and cheese omlettes. Our sailing partners on this adventure are Katie and Chip Prather off Miss Teak.

After finishing a truly wonderful meal the boys decided they had to stop at the local candy store. It was a sight to behold with marshmallows the size of oranges and everything you could possible need in the way of party candy.

Katie and I were more interested in the tortilla factory. We have seen the ladies on street corners making them by had but had never seen an assembly line. Very cool, but what we really need was fresh veggies so we went off on a hunt for the freshest we could find.

After a much needed rest from all our morning exploring we headed back into town for what we had heard were the best street vendor hotdogs on the Baja Penninsula. They start with a hotdog, wrap it in bacon, deep fry it in oil, throw a bit of aracerra meat on, add onions and great salsa and then offer you mayo or mustard to top it off. The very best though is the bun, never have I tasted a bun so light and slightly sweet. No one, including myself, can eat just one!

We had also heard about the corn vendor so we headed off in search of him, veggies are always good for us right? Wrong, the vendor put a scoop of corn in a cup, a healthy squirt of mayo and a spoonful of cheese in and then repeated the entire process. He offered us a sprinkle of chili leper as a topping along with a squirt of lime. Don't turn up your nose on this until you try it, it was to die for!

Right across the street from the corn vendor we spotted Thrifty Ice Cream! What a way to end a day of culinary firsts. Oh no saved from major indigestion, they are closed.

Bright and early tomorrow we will begin our long trek home to Puerto Vallarta where we plan to leave Di's Dream for the summer. Plane tickets home were purchased today so we must start to draw to a close our first year of cruising. Plans are underway to return early November after a very busy summer including our first trip to Canada. Don't worry, we will be out hear another six weeks so the blogs will continue.

Whale shark

I was trying to post another picture of our big friend the the blog Gods wouldn't let me so here is another posting with both pictures

In case anyone is wondering where we are finding groceries up here in the Sea I thought a picture might save a thousand words

Catching up

Catching up can mean many things when you are cruising down here in Mexico. It could mean catching up with new friends that have been traveling to different anchorages, it could mean catching up on emails home to old friends we left behind, it could mean catching up on boat projects like washing the salt off the boat but this morning it means catching up the blog. So here it goes.

After leaving Loretto with a full refrig we headed up to San Juanico which is an uninhibited bay that gives you great protection from the north winds. When we arrived on Monday there we just a few boats in the anchorage but by late Tuesday there were over 25 boats hoping their anchors were well set! We had north winds kick up that kept everyone staying close to their boats. It became a great time to read a book. By Thursday the wind died down and we tried to do all our exploring in just one day which included walking the beach, snorkeling and a great pot luck to finish the day. We learned that most of the boats in the anchorage were headed to Guymas for their summer haul out. We still wanted to further north so we had everyone give us a bit of advice.

We experienced our first boarding by the Mexican Navy while we were in San Juanico and it went very smoothly. We gave them all our documents including our passports and boat import papers, they inspected everything from our flares to our GPS. All was in order to they progress to the next boat .

Early Friday we left for Bahia Conception unsure of what we would find after getting very negative reports from a cruising couple who had just come down from there. They reported messy birds, too many flies, a red tide and noisy trucks on the nearby Highway 1. We found little of this to be true and loved our two day stay. Satispac was a wonderful spot with some lovely homes built into the side of the hill, a natural hot spring right at the waters edge and a great restaurant. I was ready for a night off from cooking duties and Rog wanted a real margarita.

We have been listening to Gary on the Sonrisa Net for our weather reports for years now. He is always reports on his home weather in El Boro Cove so since we were in the area we wanted to stop by and thank him for all the effort he puts into his forecasts. We were surprised to see most of the homes in El Boro boarded up and residents gone for the season. Gary remains year round and looked very happy sitting on his porch overlooking a beautiful bay.

While enjoying our dingy ride we did encounter a whale shark, a rather big fellow that was just cruising along the surface of the water. He made me a little uncomfortable but Rog just loved getting close to the gentle giant.

A Beautiful Mother's Day

I awoke on Mother's Day to a beautiful sunrise! I have to admit I was up for just few moments before I remember that it was Sunday and there was no net so my head could go back down for a bit! I love Sundays!

It was Mother's Day in the States but don't think they celebrate quite the same down here if it all. Rog had scouted town on Saturday trying to find a spot for a nice Sunday brunch but apparently brunch is not big down here. He finally learned that the hotel La Mision would be
open. The Hotel is the tall building in the photo but you can also see how calm the
anchorage was here in Loretto.

There had been a group of ten joining us for breakfast but do one boat problem or another set backs only our friends on Destiny, John and Gilly, could join us. Three of us ordered eggs benedict and Rog had an omelet Mexican. We ate every bite.

It was hard to leave the hotel and go back to our normal schedule of a little grocery shopping, a little check of our Internet, maybe read a book and certainly a siesta. It is Mexico after all. Dinner will be something light after our huge breakfast but we will think about that later

I hope all my girlfriends back home and our newest Mothers Jennifer Stepaniuk and Judy Stouffer's daughter in law Amy had as wonderful a day as I did. Love to all

Ballandra aka Beelandra

I believe it was Friday, down here the only way you know the day of the week is by your pill box and that only works if you remember to take your pills everyday, we left Honeymoon Cove for Ballandra. This was nine mile trip that had us passing by Loretto and a cell tower! Yes I could catch up on my blog and check in on Dad. All is well at home. As we neared the anchorage we saw that Destiny had already dropped anchor and John was busy getting the dink in the water. Still not sure how they got to Ballandra before us since we had left way before them but I guess I was too distracted making calls home.

The water is as beautiful as any we have seen so far. It was both the deep blue and the turquoise at the same time. I can not wait to actually see the anchor from our deck.

Enough said about the beauty of Ballandras because there is a down side to this anchorage beter known as "Beelandra". After a lovely swim to both cool off and to check the bottom of I decided to rinse off on the back of our boat. Everyone knows about the fresh water wash down on the after steps of all Catalina, they are great every where but in the Sea of Cortez. Fresh water doesn't at track one bee it at tracks hundreds that just swarm the entire boat looking for more fresh water. We had to close up the entire boat and the inside temp of 87 degrees required that the air conditioner had to be turn on. Thank goodness for the air as it turned out all our friends were attacked at the same time! Turned into a dinner pot luck on Di's Dream and no one got stung. So there is the story of Beelandra.

Honeymoon Cove

Thats right, Honeymoon Cove is the anchorage we stopped at first after leaving Puerto Escondido.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Destiny with John and Gilly abourd and Miss Teak with Katie and Chip joined us for two days of hiking, swimming and drifting cocktails..

We took a hike on the island just to see to see what we could see. The was a path that led from the beach clear to the summit where we found a marriage proposal written out of stones! Sorry, that picture is on the other camera and I can't upload them at this time.

The morning we were leaving we had an amazing display from dolphins who appeared to be herding fish in our anchorage. They were tail slapping, diving and even doing flips for our enjoyment
for the better part of an hour. We were sad when they suddenly just left the anchorage.

Di enjoyed the kayaking, there was very little wind so she could see all the fishing hanging around the rocks and there were lots.

The Weather is Frightful

We are loving the Loreto Fest but just wish the weather had held for the entire weekend. Late Saturday the wind started picking up but the forecast for Sunday through Tuesday did not sound good. True to the forecast the wind in the anchorage reached a high of 32knots where we were on a mooring ball! Hold on tight. Rog did attach a second bow line to the mooring ball for safety and were glad we did. Overnight two boats chafed through their lines and got set adrift. Several anchored boats found themselves floating free too. Not a good night.

Today the wind subsided down to 24 knts until late in the afternoon. Finally it has blown through and we can been thankful for the six ton block holding us in place. Tomorrow we will do cleaning chores and prepare ourselves to leave on Thursday.

Pictures to follow