Bob and Carol onboard Sirena

Bob and Carol, Connie's brother and sister-in-law, joined us for 5 days on the boat. We met them at their time share, Villa del Palmar, in Candeleros bay and enjoyed lunch at the resort with them. The next morning, Ed took the dinghy ashore to pick up Bob and Carol from the beach. As soon as they were on board we raised the anchor and headed for Honeymoon cove on Isla Danzante. We were in luck because the anchorage was empty and it's so small there is only room for one boat. It's a beautiful little anchorage, narrow with high rocky walls, and a white, sandy beach at the head of the bay. It had clear, turquoise water and we could see lots of fish, so we quickly got out our snorkel gear and jumped in the water. We saw lots of different fish and the snorkeling was good except for being a little dark because we had total cloud cover. The clouds were from Hurricane Ramon and they really cooled the weather down from what it had been. After we finished snorkeling, we were on deck, having just rinsed off with the solar shower, when it started raining. We were surprised as rain had not been in the weather forecast. It rained the rest of the afternoon, so we had to put off going snorkeling again. It rained and the wind blew all night and the next morning until 10:00. When it stopped raining we decided to leave and go to another anchorage and hope for better weather. We went to Ballandra on Isla Carmen and the weather was better there. As we were motoring away from Isla Danzante we watched the clouds move in again and the air was thick with rain over the island. We were glad we left when we did. We went snorkeling again in Ballandra and the snorkeling was good. However, the bugs were awful!! When Ed and I swam ashore to get the dinghy on the beach we got swarmed by Bobo's and No See Ums. They were so thick around us that we could hardly get our gear off and get the dinghy back in the water because we were constantly shooing them away. Ed got bit all over his body and I had a white lycra shirt on and it was covered with 100's of black specks. There were a lot less bugs out on the water than on shore so we decided to pick up Bob and Carol from the water, then made a beeline to our boat. Fortunately we have bug screens on our boat, so that kept the bugs on the outside. There were 2 other boats in the bay that were friends of ours and we got together for happy hour on one of their boats and had a really nice time. Ballandra's shoreline had changed from our previous trips there. It used to have a small stream that meandered through the flat land above the beach then trickled through the sand into the bay. There had been a lot of rain from the remants of several hurricanes and tropical storms and the small stream turned into a raging river and washed out most of the beach and now was flowing into the bay and had created a shoal and sand bar out in the bay. It was quite a surprise to see the nice big sandy beach gone. During the night our weather changed and we could feel the boat bobbing up and down on the waves that were rolling into the bay. Since the wind was forecast to blow hard for several days, we left in the morning and headed for Puerto Escondido, which is a very protected harbor. We spent the last 3 days of Bob and Carols' visit here in Puerto Escondido. We were disappointed that we couldn't show them more anchorages in the beautiful Sea of Cortez, but such is the cruising life, where our travels are influenced by the weather. We rented a car and took them into Loreto to explore the town. We had lunch in a really good restaurant called Orlando's, which was new since we were there last spring. There is also a new grocery store in Loreto called La Ley, which is so much better and has more selection, than the other small stores. So we took the opportunity to get more food for the boat. The next day we wanted to take Bob and Carol to breakfast at a great place called El Borracho (the drunk). Another couple wanted to go with us, so we had to figure out how to get 6 people and luggage in this tiny rental car that was about as big as a small Fiat. The storage area behind the back seat was 1 foot deep, but amazingly held 2 duffel bags and 3 backpacks. Inside we had 3 in the back seat and 3 in the front (Julie sat on Bill's lap in the passenger seat and they had to stay out of the way of the stick shift!) It had little 10 inch wheels and everytime we went over a little bump we all held out breaths!! We had a great breakfast, as always, at El Borracho. It looks like an old cowboy/western saloon with a lot of things hanging on the walls like saddles, stirrups, horseshoes, branding irons, bulls' horns, etc. After breakfast, we took Bob and Carol to the Loreto airport to fly home. Then we went back to our boat to plan for the next leg of our trip to Agua Verde.