We pulled into Santa Maria Bay and anchored just as darkness fell over us. We had just enough residual light to comfortably find a good spot to set our 73 pound Rocna anchor, and pay out ~110 feet of 3/8" chain before retiring for the night. We pay a performance penalty for having 500 pounds of anchor and chain on the bow, but we always sleep well at night knowing it's deployed. There may have been some "safe arrival" rum shared between the crew as is customary, but I can't remember for sure.
A gorgeous sunrise over the Eastern part of the expansive bay greeted us the following morning. It's always fun to see what things really look like - as compared to what your imagination conjured up from staring at the navigation charts in the dark. In this part of the world, you can't cheat and look at Google Earth, as cell data is non-existent, and Iridium satellite phones don't have the bandwidth to do pictures well.
After the usual morning Ha-Ha net on the VHF radio to see who's where and if anybody has a medical emergency or needs assistance, the day is ours to do whatever we wish. Today's "help-needed" requests from the Ha-Ha fleet were many. But one request was for help with a new Spectra watermaker - which was in my wheelhouse, as I had just installed one on Huzzah. An hour's effort yielded an easy deposit into the karma bank. Afterwards, Ken & Gerry visit a couple fellow sailors to see what's up. That may sound funny, but it's just what sailors do. Learning how others' approach their boat preparation and passage-making is part of my learning process. We make a stop to see our new Single Side Band (SSB) professor Hartley aboard his Tayana 48DS "Atsa". He's a HAM from way back, and has the gift of explaining technical things in laymen's terms. It's also a chance to carry the ubiquitous memory stick around the anchorage in hopes of finding some good pictures of your boat sailing at sea. Good fun for an uber-passionate sailor like me.
Today, we enjoyed a relatively lazy morning (they are all lazy by pre-retirement standards), with a late breakfast prepared by Jody & Rosalie (yum yum) and coffee in the cockpit, swimming, and showers. What is today, anyway - someone askes? Hum, we grab our smart phones, click a button and wow...it's Monday the 2nd. It's somewhat ironic that we even know where are phones are, as Verizon customers like me get nada for service in Mexico. Good thing iPhones have a camera. Ken has T-Mobile, which works very well here. Note to self, dump Verizon. Later it's off to a dinghy party. Tomorrow is a beach party. By now you get the picture; relax, party, sleep, repeat! It's so easy, everybody here is doing it :-)


Pictures below of Bahia Santa Maria (Latitude 38 photo credit)


So many sailors have gone aboard our mother ship in the past, the cockpit sole was damaged by the weight. So, now we party from our dingys'


Rosalie & Don at the dinghy party