Gabelfest
12 December 2009 | Caleta Partida, BCS
Alison
Today we say goodbye to Grant and Phyllis Gabel, Allan's dad and his wife, after a perfect, if too short, 5-day visit. In that 5 days, we managed to hit all the highlights: breakfast at La Panga here in the marina, lunch at Rancho Viejo, a local favorite with excellent carne arrachera tacos, a coffee hour visit to the cruiser hangout Club Cruceros, a walking tour of town, 2 perfect days in Caleta Partida, the small gap between Isla Espiritu Santo and Isla Partida, and a fabulous final dinner in La Paz.
We were pleased to see the anchorage of Caleta Partida peppered with boats we know, including the Iron Maiden, who we haven't seen since we waved goodbye in San Carlos over a month ago. Across the anchorage was Stray Cat, our next-door-neighbors in Marina Palmira. Others from the Baja Ha Ha rally and folks we've met since we've arrived in La Paz were all around us, and we had fun waving enthusiastically as everyone zipped by in their dingies, en route to fishing or diving. The weather was perfect, as it has been for the last month. There's a reason the locals and cruisers call it paradise -- this time of year, especially, there are few bugs, no rain, the temperatures range from low 60's at night to a perfect, breezy 80 during the day, and the sunsets are remarkable.
Allan and Grant were fishing maniacs, with perpetual grins on their faces. In all, they caught 3 tuni's, 1 beautiful orange roughy, and 10 sierra mackerel. Combined with some mahi mahi gifted to us by Iron Maiden Bill, we had a good dose of fish. We fileted a few of the mackeral for ceviche, and the next morning we climbed in the dingy and took the rest from boat to boat and shared it, sort of Fish Santas, which gave us a chance to visit and officially meet some of the folks we'd been waving to.
Allan's 49th birthday was Wednesday, celebrated on board while a fiery orange sunset blasted the western sky in Caleta Partida. Bill and Laurie from Iron Maiden joined us, and brought a fabulous homemade German pound cake and the perfect gift: a fishing lure.
Thursday morning we met Rod and Elizabeth from Proximity for a hike up a rocky river bed on Partida, a steep and challenging climb up gorgeous red boulders and peppered with spiky plants and vines. We started as a unified group, but after 30 minutes of hard climbing, we began dropping off like stages of a rocket. Grant & Phyllis gave a valiant and determined effort but finally fell back while Rod and Elizabeth and Allan and I continued up at a fairly fast clip, forging a trail where there really was none. When we realized the top was hours away, and the rocks were getting bigger as the water quantity got smaller, Allan and I turned and started back down to join Grant & Phyllis. Shortly thereafter, Rod and Elizabeth were spotted in retreat, and when they caught up we learned that a nest of snakes sunning themselves on a rock had changed their minds about continuing the climb, at least without other companions.
We also had a snake encounter, aural, not visual -- the shake of rattler. Although I grew up hiking through rattlesnake country, I've never seen nor heard one. I wasn't quite sure what it was, it sounded more like steam escaping from a small vent, but the rattle at the end was unmistakable. We gave the bush he was hiding under wide berth and warned Rod and Elizabeth as they neared the area. Not 5 minutes later we spotted a huge, pale green scorpion trying to escape our thundering approach. Allan coaxed it out of it's hole with a stick. (Check it out in the photo gallery.) It was about 4 inches long and looked like something from the rubbery Creepy Crawler set my neighbor Frank had when we were kids.
We managed to escape land with all our toes and fingers, free of any debilitating venom, and returned to the safety of our snake-free boat for lunch. I should mention that the night before Bill spotted a yellow sea snake off the stern of his boat, so I guess it's not safe anywhere ...
We celebrated whatever else needed celebrating by having a wonderful meal back in La Paz at Tres Virgenes, (Three Virgins, although none of them were in evidence) joined by our UAL friend and La Paz resident Rick. Dad Grant treated us all, and it was a truly excellent meal in a fairy-like garden courtyard.
So farewell to the last of the visitors for awhile, now we'll plan the next step in our journey, which will include a splurgy trip to Mexico's Copper Canyon, some time in Mazatlan, and then on down the coast. In honor of the season, I've dutifully decorated the boat with our tiny fake Christmas tree and some ornaments I brought along, but we're just not feeling in the spirit of it all. Maybe spending Christmas in front of a roaring fire at 8,000 feet in chilly Copper Canyon is what's needed. Meanwhile, keep sending us those photos and descriptions of the rain falling, the snow blowing, the ice jamming the car locks, the the icicles draping off the eaves, and we'll keep wearing our shorts and flip flops and tank tops.