We've moved on from San Juanico to what we hope to be a nice little cove, Playa Santispac in Bahia Concepcion another 54 miles farther up the Sea of Cortez.

Friday was spent hiking ashore with folks from three other boats. We got an invitation to walk over to La Ramada, a nice cove to the North of San Juanico to have a picnic lunch on the beach. We all met ashore at 1100 and first visited the "Cruiser's Tree". This is a tree along the shoreline that fellow cruisers leave small bits of things--signs, flags, etc--too show that they have been there. If you have been following our earlier blog(see the link on the main page to Sailblogs.com), you will remember us visiting a similar "shrine" up in British Columbia on our way North to Alaska last year. There were mementos of lots of earlier cruisers from as far back as 1997 along the shore with names and dates as to when they were here.

One of the attractions for me during the hike was trying to find some "Apache Tears", These are small bits of obsidian that can be found along the shoreline and on paths around the cove. The story of them that is in the "good book"(Sea of Cortez, A Cruisers Guide by Shawn Breeding and Heather Bansmer) is as follows: "The legend of Apache Tears began back in the 1870's when the United States calvary fought against the Apache in Arizona. With defeat imminent, the Apache warriors refused to be held captive and leapt to their death from atop the face of a cliff. The families of the warriors wept greatly for their loss and with each tear shed, it turned to stone upon hitting the earth. It is believed that anyone who carries an Apache Tear will never have to weep again, for the families for the Apache warriors have wept in place of your sorrows." So the story goes. None of the other folks we were with had ever heard the story and we all started looking for th small stones. We each found several--about the size of a large pea. all rough and tumbled from all the years of exposure. I cracked one in half so the others could see what the inside look like. Obsidian is volcanic glass. A beautiful shade of black and reflective like glass. We now have several pieces to keep on board Zephyr.

We had a great hike to La Ramada and had a nice lunch and explored the beautiful beach and hiked out to the East point of the cove. There were landmarks where it is plotted out for what may be construction of a future home. There are several homes along the cliffs above the beach at San Juanico. They are crazy to build there as the first hurricane that comes through with big waves will wipe them out. Upon our return to San Juanico, we found our dingies far up the shore as the tide had receded a good 100 feet as the beach goes out quite a bit as the tide goes out. Everyone pitched in hauling the dingies back out to the water. After getting cleaned up, we all met on "Island Grace", a beautiful cruising trawler that we had spoken to as we came in the anchorage a few days ago. The eight of us talked, the guys drank beers(lots) and ate popcorn up in the pilot house while the girls were downing Bloody Mary's and noshing on smoked oysters, gouda cheese and crackers and orange peel stuffed olives, and whiled away the rest of the afternoon. A nice way to spend the day.

We left San Juanico yesterday morning for the 54 mile trek to Bahia Concepcion and Playa Santispac, a small cove in the large bay. We faced a stiff 12 to 15 knot wind from the Northwest, straight at us. We knew the sail up from Escondido was not going to be repeated. We were hitting 5-6 foot swell and a good breeze so we slowly made our way North. We saw several whales(far off) and a pod of dolphins as we plowed through the waves. We finally pulled in as the Sun was setting and dropped the anchor((26 45.674N 111 53.048W). We'll be exploring this large bay for a few days before we decide where to head next. Maybe farther North to Santa Rosalia, or we may start heading South again toward La Paz and then across the Sea of Cortez to Mazatlan. For right now, explore where we are.