The photo above was taken at Punta Pulpita.

The stay in Puerto Ballandra was pleasant enough. Seeing the mountain sheep was reward enough, I think. The next couple of days, March 30-31, saw us stopping briefly at Isla Coronados, then overnight at Caleta San Juanico, and on to Punta Pulpita. It was just a brief lunch stop at Isla Coronados as we spent that first night out of Puerto Ballandra towards the southern end of Caleta San Jaunico. My old, tired manual windlass came apart while raising the anchor at Coronados. Pieces just falling out of it onto the deck when I had maybe 30 feet of chain still out. I quickly hauled the chain and the 44 pound anchor hand over hand onto the deck and into the chain locker so that I could depart the island's coastline before drifting uncomfortably close. Fortunately, I was able to reassemble the pieces of the windlass and make it functional again as we motored northward (little to no wind). The thing will make me nervous, however, until I can give it some proper maintenance.

We stayed but one night in Juanico as we desired to be on our way to Bahia Conception. Both Eagle and Anna Marie raised sails soon as we were reasonably clear of the headland at the north end of the bay. Although it would prove that I tried to soon and got hit with some strong and variable winds causing me grid with tangle reefing lines and the jib sheets. Once I had that sorted, I sailed northwesterly in Eagle's wake passing Punta Pulpita's massive rock headland a couple of hours after departing Juanico. Shortly after that Anna Marie was hit head on by winds clocking 31 knots on my instruments. Tom from Eagle had given me a few minutes warning that the winds were coming, so I barely managed to get the jib reefed before they struck. Mains'l being fully deployed. I managed to get the main double reefed, but with the wind at near 30 knots right on the nose, I made the decision to turn around and run for the protection of Punta Pulpita just a mile or so back. I radioed Tom to tell him and he said that he was doing the same. We certainly didn't need to be anywhere bad enough to beat into that. Relatively calm once we were securely anchored behind the headland.

Although this happened on Friday, March 31, we decided to stay put behind the massive rock that is Punta Pulpita until the winds were favorably southerly. That proved to be Monday, April 3. We went ashore twice while there, hiking over to look at the big vein of pure obsidian that runs through the rock face and to climb high up to the ridge joining the headland with the flatter interior.

Monday found us sailing north towards Bahia Conception. Or I should say Eagle sailed most of the way, but Anna Marie motor sailed just to make enough headway to get up there before nightfall. Anna Marie's bottom was terribly fouled with marine growth. She was badly in need of her skipper diving on the mess and scraping it clean.

Even with that mess slowing me down, we made it into Bahia Conception in good time and worked our way down the bay to the smaller Bahia Coyote where we anchored off Playa Santispac 0n April 3. While here we ate and drank beer, enjoyed a marginal connection to the Internet, and met fellow cruisers at Ana' Restaurant on the beach.. The operator, Carlos, gave Tom and me a ride into Mulege, about 14 miles north up Mexico Highway 1. There we bought water, purchased provisions, and o the Internet at the local internet cafe. Got caught up on emails, messaging, banking, weather, news.

The cruisers we met are Biagio and Jovianna from Gem, Rick and Wendy from Kismet, and Joe and Jamie off of Sherpa.

We stayed off Playa Santispac until Friday, April 7, when we - Eagle and Anna Marie - motored over to Playa El Burro. Nice restaurants here - Bertha's Restaurant with Pepe's Bar on the beach, and JC's Restaurant and Bar across the highway. Tom and I hiked up to the top of the ridge overlooking Coyote Bay and the cove we were anchored in at the time seeking not only exercise but ancient petroglyphs. We found both. The same day i dove on Anna Marie and spent a couple of hours scraping copious amounts of purple and white flora off the hull. What a mess! I didn't quite finish so the next day Tom, who is much better at holing his breath to better get down deep along the bottom of the keel, helped me finish. While i was down there by myself, Tom spotted a whale shark nearby when out in his dinghy. I sorely regret not seeing the creature, although other boaters said that it came fairly close to my boat while I was down there. Now wouldn't that have been an experience! Tom said it looked as big as one of our sailboats.

On Sunday, April 9, I moved Anna Marie over to a small cove off Posada Conception, a beach and highland where many expensive looking house reside. We stayed there until Tuesday, April 11 when we moved out of Bahia Coyote and up to the northern end of Bahia Conception and anchored off a shell strewn beach at Bahia Santo Domingo. There we went ashore and i collected what I thought were a few good examples of the thousands of shells strewn up and down the beach.

From Santo Domingo, we moved the boats up to Punta Chivato on Wednesday, April 12. Another wonderfully shell covered beach at the anchorage on the southern side of this point. And more shells collected. Continuing on our way, we sailed (most of the way) up to Sweet Pea Cove on Isla San Marcos on Thursday, and here we sit at anchor off a deserted fish camp, hanging on a small ledge in a fairly open anchorage, waiting until conditions are optimum for our crossing, west to east, of the Sea of Cortez. Next destination is San Carlos.