Note: I am initially updating this blog entry via the radio so I can't put the pictures in I want. There is an internet cafe in town but the connection is very slow and the building is very hot inside, I'll put the pictures in later (I have marked their location with parenthesis).
Update: Pictures added
We've been up in Bahia de los Angeles (BLA) for the last few weeks, and will probably be here for awhile. BLA is a large bay with many scattered islands and anchorages and is a popular area in the winter for camping. There is only one smallish village though and few provisions. From what we have been told it's pretty busy in the late fall to spring, but only the crazy yachtistas are here in the summer. It's very hot and muggy, I can't wait 'till fall when it starts to cool down and it's safe to go south.
The trip up from Santa Rosalia was pretty uneventful, though when we first left we couldn't get the boat speed up to normal; Tom was worried that we were losing our transmission! We debated going back but Santa Rosalia doesn't really have any repair facilities. It was a long overnight passage to San Fransisquito! It was good to see the sun come up, even though it would bring the heat with it. Sunsets and sunrises seem more spectacular out in the water:
Once we got safely anchored and had a good rest in San Fransisquito, we dove over the side. The problem with our speed was obvious, the bottom of the boat looked like a big shag carpet from the 70's and the prop was just a fuzzy round ball. It's a wonder that we could move through the water at all. A few hours of scrapping made our bottom look more like a boat's than a psychedelic flashback :-) We had just had our bottom cleaned three weeks ago in Santa Rosalia so in this warm water, the growth is incredible (like weeds growing in a spring garden). San Fransisquito was a nice anchorage but typical Baja dry:
We moved on to Las Animas bay, where unfortunately we got inundated with bees! There were dozens buzzing around the boat trying to get in. I was very glad I had sewn bug screens for the hatches and dodger so that kept most bees outside but we couldn't go out without feeling like we were under assault, we didn't stay too long in Las Animas.
On the way there we came across a huge pod of dolphins feeding, there were hundreds! They weren't interested in playing though so we sadly said good bye:
Our next stop was Ensenada el Quemado (burned bay). This was a very nice, secure and shallow bay, no bees and we ended up spending a week there just hanging out, continuing cleaning the bottom and exploring the bay. We had a few days of clouds which wasn't good for the solar power generation, but kept the temperature a little lower.
The clouds made for beautiful sunsets:
We started to run a little low on a few provisions so we motored around the corner to the village at Bahia de los Angeles. The few small stores are well stocked with staples, but nothing fancy. The exciting thing about the village anchorage was that there were whale sharks feeding in it! At one point I counted five in the anchorage and occasionally they would swim right by the boat: This one was only about 14 feet long :-)
It was then time for the full moon party! 27 boats descended on a small lagoon called La Gringa, in the north part of BLA where everyone floats into the lagoon on the rising tide then floats out when the tide reverses, do we know how to party or what?! While it sounds corny, it was a lot of fun and some of the floats were pretty impressive:
That's about it for now, just hanging out in BLA, listening to the weather and hoping no hurricane makes it up here.
Cheers,
Carolynn & Tom
----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com/
