Today is Wednesday May 19th, 2010 – We are now in San Carlos on the mainland side of Mexico. We left Bahia Conception on Saturday May 15th. We had intended to stay on the Baja side until it was time to haul out June 9th but a friend of ours is going back to the states and we needed to meet up with him before he left so we came over here early.
One thing I wanted to do was get those pictures in that I couldn’t get uploaded last time. The first two are of the anchor I told you about. When leaving La Paz our chain had gone around and around the anchor so when we finally pulled it up we had a ball of chain around the anchor and Rick got pictures of it.
The other pictures was of Loreto Fest. We had a good time there. I don’t know if we will go back or not, there is no town close by so all you have is the cruisers and Loreto Fest. Which is fun but I like being either out in the middle of no where or in a local town meeting people and practicing my Spanish, which I haven’t done much lately as we have not been to a town or village since La Paz. Anyway here are a few pictures of Loreto Fest.
They also had the local high school doing traditional dances which I love. I don’t want to put all those pictures here though so I will add them to the photo page (if I can find it again it’s been so long!)
After Loreto Fest we went down to San Juanico and hung out for a few days. We anchored in the south anchorage for the first time as the weather guys were calling for SW winds. We did get the winds, not really bad but we were glad to be in the South end. The boats in the North end were rolling a lot from what one of them told us. We didn’t really do anything there as the water was to cold and there was only a small beach close by. We had wanted to snorkel as we anchored near some reefs that are supposed to be good snorkeling. No joy, the water was still to cold. From there we headed out to Bahia Conception. We were going to stop in Santo Domingo which is right at the entrance to the bay but we made such good time that we kept going and made it all the way to El Burro cove in the same amount of time we had estimated it would take us to get to Santo Domingo which is eight miles from El Burro.
About 8-10 miles before we rounded point Conception we caught a black skipjack, also known as a Mexican little Tunney. It was about 7-8 pounds and really a strong fighter. I gave the pole (he hit on my pole) to Rick as I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to bring him in. I think I was just so excited that I could concentrate! Rick brought him in and I put on my special fishing gloves (don’t want to handle the fishy little things bare handed!) and we brought him aboard! It was very exciting. Rick took pictures then I fillet him. The meat is the reddest meat I have ever seen on a fish. Not that I have seen that many. When I cooked it up it looked like roast beef! It was a lot more chewy then any other fish I have eaten also. It was not bad chewy just more then any other fish I know. I asked some of the other ladies how they cook them but the ones I asked hadn’t had caught and cooked any yet. There was enough fish for two meals. The first time I just put butter and garlic on it and grilled it and it came out pretty good. Like I said it was different then any other fish I’ve had. The second time I looked up a marinade for dark meat fish and tried that but didn’t like it as well. I finally talked to one lady that said that another friend of hers soaked them in milk before cooking them because the meat is so dark. I don’t know what that does but if we get another I may try it. So, overall it was ok fish but not my favorite.
(can’t find the fish pictures. next time!)
When we got to El Burro it was around 1700 and the water was 80 degrees!!! Yea!!! Finally water warm enough to swim and snorkel. The first thing we did was jump in the water! It was great. Later I cooked the fish and all in all it was an awesome day.
We stayed in El Burro a week. We had three days that the water was warm enough to swim then 3-4 days that the wind blew to hard to swim with any fun. We went to shore and talked to Geary who lives there year round and provides weather for all cruisers on a Ham net each morning. He also lets us use his wifi but only for email, no down loads or skype as it uses to much of his alloted time. Again we didn’t do a whole lot. Each place we have gone since Loreto Fest we have been to before and we seem to just be waiting for the time when we go back to the states. Our minds are already making all the plans to put the boat up and the work we need to do on it and then the plans we have for when we are in the states! It’s kind of an odd limbo feeling.
We left El Burro cove in Bahia Conception at 0730. We had thought to go to Santo Domingo which is just 8 miles out then wait until late afternoon to take off but decided that the day was great and the weather was perfect so we would just keep going and go slow. At our regular speed it should have taken us 18 hours. We putted along real slow and took 24 to get here. The main thing being that we did not want to arrive in the dark. As it was we arrived 0730 (by our clock) only to find out they are one hour behind where we were. Going East you think that they would be one hour ahead but it’s daylight savings time and San Carlos/Guaymas does not do daylight savings. So when we arrived we had to wait a couple hours before the local cruisers net was on and we could get a hold of our friends on Serenity. They arranged for a mooring ball for us. We didn’t know how early they got up so we were just waiting. They called us about an hour after we got here and were surprised that we were already here and anchored waiting to talk to them. They really helped us a lot. They arranged for one mooring ball and when it ended up being to close for our size boat (to close to the other boats) they found us another one! It is so nice to have friends familiar with the area to help us out. All the mooring balls here are privately owned so we wouldn’t know who to contact to get one. We have decided that after our week here we are going to go to a couple of places we have not been to on this side. Instead of just marking time we want to enjoy every minute we can and seeing new places is top on our list of fun things to do!!
So, we are here for now. I don’t know when I will do the next update, Probably in a couple weeks when we haul out. I will have new stuff to report and should have good internet at that time also.
Take care and have fun!!!
