04/18/2012, Puerto Los Gatos
Jeanne and I both woke early this morning and decided to go ahead and get an earlier start than planned. We had the anchor up and had left the beautiful harbor of San Evaristo at 5:00 AM. We have made many great new friends there, and learned a lot about the daily occurrences of a small Mexican fishing village. When we left Seattle, one of our goals was to not just be "Gringo Cruisers" and actually insinuate our selves in the Mexican culture. We got to do that to some small degree in La Paz, but here in San Evaristo it was truly a treat to learn about the customs, values and way of life. Evaristo is a small fishing village, with one Cantina, someone's house, one Tienda (grocery store) someone's house, one place to buy gasoline, again someone's house and one small school with 9 kids enrolled. There is a dirt road that goes to La Paz, but it is a 4+ hour drive, and trucks or jeeps only!
Steve and Charlotte off of the sailboat Willfull Simplicity have lived most of the year in Evaristo for 3 years now, and are regarded as either the Ambassadors or the Mayors of the town. They help with English lessons, translate for visiting cruisers, and do fund raisers for the local school when they are back in La Paz. We have enjoyed their friendship, the help they gave us learning about Evaristo, and many nights with a glass of wine and a game of Farkle!! We hope to see you both real soon.
While is was sad to be leaving, we know that there is so much more for us to see here in the Sea of Cortez. The run up to Los Gatos started with flat calm seas, and zero wind, then the wind built up to nearly 15 knots from the stern, so we sailed, then it slowly died down, and we put up the spinnaker for a short while, then it died completely. Motor time!! It was a great morning, we had the anchor set by 11:30 AM, and will set off to explore in a few minutes...I have to go launch the kayaks!!
More later
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Comments [0]
04/16/2012, San Evaristo
It sounds like there will be a possible break in theses strong northerlies on Wednesday. If so we will make a run for it, and try to get into Los Gatos. Besides, the fishing here has slowed down a bit, but none the less, we told John out fishing with us this morning and kept 16 really nice sand bass. Tonight the water was pretty rough and both the tuna and the barracuda just were not biting. We did land a Bonefish and a Half Beak fish.
By the way Sharon, if you are reading along here, this is the infamous location of the run away sleeping bag!
We are told that this anchorage at Los Gatos is very unique and beautiful with it's red rock formations. If we do move we will make sure and send a note!!
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04/15/2012, San Evaristo
With all the new fish, both quantity and species, Jeanne has been trying a lot of great new recipes. Tonight was using some of the Blacktail Barracuda to make patties with. This is similar to the way many restaurants serve Salmon or crab cakes. The Barracuda was served with spicy white sauce, along with some home made coleslaw and mashed potatoes.
We were told that on occasion, you can hike up to a certain cactus and get cell reception....well, today the cactus was out of order!! I guess we will have to wait until Loreto to make some calls, around May first!
Bueno Noches
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04/14/2012, San Evaristo
Ok...so we are still in San Evaristo, but we are having so much fun it is hard to leave. The fishing is incredible, catching so many we are actually giving fish away to the locals. We are both learning Spanish, Jeanne much faster than me, but I am doing OK. John of of SV Time Piece finally caught back up to us here. We have been doing some great hiking. Jeanne took a day and did school photos for all 9 of the kids enrolled here in the local school. The local tienda has a pretty good supply of food, with some fresh veggies and eggs every couple of days. There is a cantina that serves cold cervezas, when they have the local ice plant working, or when some one makes the 4 hours drive to La Paz.
Right now there are three days of northerlies predicted, so we will wait them out and begin to move farther north. Until then, we will just keep catching fish, and having a blast.
Sorry to have not written in a while, i will try to not go so long with out a report.
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04/11/2012, San Evaristo
It is nearly midnight, here in the bay of San Evaristo. I am writing this in an effort to "balance the books" so to speak. So many of our blog posts are about sunny skies, warm days, great fishing, and amazing sunsets. So just like the old adage, The Grass Is Always Greener....this is our make up day. The day was warm, and sunny, I will give you that, but it started out windy and continued to build all day. We are nicely tucked into the south west corner of the bay, in order to get some protection from the steady 12-15 knot breeze that has been blowing out of the south. The other side of the bay had 3-4 foot wind waves rolling thru to the beach.
Just before dark, we had a complete fiasco with another boat trying to anchor right in the middle of the boats that were already here but I will save that amazing tale of stupidity for a later posting. I only mention this part, as a lead into the the fact that all of the sudden the wind made a drastic and almost immediate switch from south easterly to a westerly. With the new wind direction now bringing into play the possibility of anchors not holding due the change in direction, along with the increased velocity. The winds now a steady 20-22 knots and strong gusts to 28-29 knots.
The newly anchored idiot, opps... I mean boat has now made all the other boats here already here very uncomfortable, and with the higher winds, we are all now just plain to close together. Throw all this in to the mix, and you have the perfect recipe for all night "Anchor Watches" where one of us is up watching the wind speed, our anchor system, and all the other boats around us. I am taking the first shift, from 9:00 PM until 1:00 AM, or until the wind dies down, which it supposed to do around midnight. So far I have seen no sign of any slowing down at all.
So, to all of our families, friends, and avid followers, many of whom I am sure see the stories of warm, sunny, and calm Mexico, and I am sure think we write these notes only to brag and tease....here you go. A cool, windy, cloudy, night that is just not any fun at all!
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04/10/2012, San Evaristo
Between the two of us, we put 15 fish in the boat today. I caught quite a few nice Sand bass, some trigger fish, a Barracuda and one awesome spotted grouper that was about 8 pounds. Even with all this, I was out classed today. Jeanne landed 3 nice green tuna, two really large Barracudas, and a real nice 12 lb Big Eye Tuna...All tremendous eating fish! Needless to say, while we have been eating a lot of fresh fish, in all kinds of ways, we now have a full freezer! In addition, we have given away to the locals or other boaters a dozen tuna, barracudas and triggerfish!
Man is this fun!!
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Have you heard of "Catch & Release"? Maybe just catch enough fish for dinner.....
I heard about your blog from another Mexican cruiser who is shocked as we are. Your giving cruisers a very bad name!
