I have a new name for this irregular, irrational, irreverent missive I seem impelled to create: Blurb. My dear friend Carol recently remarked that she had just finished my latest "blurb," and I, generally being a non-conformist, and somewhat uncomfortable with the clumsy word "blog," felt a connection to the word and with the concept. I am not a writer -- I'm a blurber. It's perfect. And so, I am officially renaming the email list of names to whom I send the link to this blog as "Blurb People."

This blurb begins as we leave La Paz for the second time since we arrived 3 weeks ago, this time to spend a week in "The Sea." Around here, they don't call it the "Sea of Cortez." They refer to it, as if it were a magical dreamland, as well as a dear friend, as The Sea. "They've gone off into The Sea," someone will wistfully remark, or, "They'll be in The Sea for the season." Previously, our experience in The Sea has been our brief 3-day jaunt across the short slice of inland ocean to Isla Santo Espiritu with my mom, Margy, where we swam with sea lions, and where, as you may recall, I was nipped by a curious sea lion. I have subsequently discovered that a blog is a very public thing, and it seems enough people here in The Sea have been reading this one and then chatting amongst themselves, ever-so-respectfully, and now that nip has made it into the local morning radio Net, in an informational sort of way. My my, what a world.

Today we head north, planning mostly to stay in anchorages and small harbors on the inland side of the Baja Peninsula. There are so many places to stop, so many islands, coves, dive outcroppings, that it's impossible to decide. We just plan to head north.

Along the way, The Sea is so calm it's like a lake. We hear a large exhale right beside the boat, and turn to see the arc of a small whale as it eases back into the water. It comes as such a surprise, expletives, (nice ones, Holy ones) flow from my mouth quickly, repeatedly. We leap from our repose and search the water for signs of more, or the same, or offspring. A few minutes later, it resurfaces, and now Allan is sliding into his wet suit, searching for his mask and snorkel, and readying himself for a swim with a whale. We slow. We wait. The air is silent, the wind calm, the sea glass. An exhale, directly behind us. A few minutes later, beside us. And then again behind. Allan finally jumps in, and I scan the water for the telltale shine on the surface for a whale. There he is, 20 feet away: I holler, and Allan turns and ducks beneath the surface. Soon, another breath, now beside us. Then, in front of us. It seems there are several, but they are not going to let Allan get close. Unquenched in his quest, he swims back to the boat and we head back out, glad, though, to even have the incredible chance to think about swimming with a whale.

We decide to stop the first night at Isla San Francisco, although the winds picked up in the last third of the sail, gusting from the wrong direction for the main anchorage, The Hook. So we round the corner and settle on the east side, in time for a fantastic sunset -- one of many in the next 18 months, no doubt. The next morning we laze. I make French Toast. We hang out. We take it slow. Allan reads, I string beads and do crossword puzzles. We let time fly. These are concepts unfamiliar to us, yet we are slowly getting the feel for it, both grateful and willing to rest for awhile.

In the early afternoon, we explore the beach, and take advantage of the opportunity to do some yoga poses on the deserted rocky shore, our backs gasping in relief. Around 2pm, we head to the next place, San Evaristo, on the Peninsula. Along the way, we pass the tiniest little island, more like a rock, with a little fishing village precariously perched on it's itty bitty little shore and climbing it's teeny slopes. Isla Coyote. Incredible.

We slice between rocky outcroppings, the gorgeous Sierra de la Giganta mountains on the Baja Peninsula looming in a sort of Lord of the Rings kind of way, the early stages, maybe The Hobbit part of the story. Up the coast, we slip into San Evaristo, and end up anchoring next to a couple we've never met, but feel we know: the couple who was supposed to bring our repaired AIS radio (which fritzed the day before we left for Mexico) to us from San Diego to La Paz. Turns out, someone else was leaving sooner, so it arrived on another boat, (thank you, Delos) but now here we are anchored next to Wytie and Sallie on Reality Check. We join them the next day for a short outing to town, to what might be called town, and a perfect walk over the hill and past the small cows with the big ears, to the salt ponds, which seems a bit flooded from the hurricane, and not so salty, but we imagine they'll dry out, and white, hand-scooped piles of sodium will emerge soon enough.

Back at the boat, our floating haven, we settle into our cabin, eat spinach fritatta, snuggle under blankets because it's a chilly 61 degrees outside, and watch "The Queen." It strikes us as such a strange juxtaposition of lifestyles: the formality and heavily steeped tradition of the English Monarchy, of cashmere, palaces, and formal gardens, next to the unfathomable freedom of our current life, our reduced-stuff life, our 400 not-so-square feet of floating home and all the blurb-inducing stories on Fly Aweigh.

Tea, anyone?