The second half of our Sea of Cortez adventure is underway. We'll only get about half way up the full length of the Sea, maybe a bit less. Our goal is Santa Rosalia, but we might not make it that far before we need to turn around and start heading for home. It's not about checking boxes for us, or achieving distance goals, or even any goals. It's about getting better at being in the moment, and if the moment is good, and the weather supports the moment, then we can choose to toss out previously-made plans and just stay. Or, we can choose to leave early and take advantage of a particularly good wind for a day or two and get some sailing in. We're also still in the company of s/v Juliet for another week, and our plans tie in with things they want to share with us, or want to see. We work together to come up with itineraries and we're all pretty good at being flexible.

Our time in Puerto Escondido, from April 19 to day-before-yesterday was great. We left a few times to do things like sail to Ballandra and V-Cove, and join the West Coast Multihull Rally for four days, but in between, we sat placidly on a mooring in the flat and beautiful "lake" of Puerto Escondido, surrounded by hills and the stunning Sierra Giganta mountains. Every day we'd zoom into shore in our dinghies, the funnest car ever, to do laundry, spend some time squirreled away in the nice Captain's Lounge on the third floor of the marina, sharing table space and couch space with other cruisers all taking advantage of the wifi and the air conditioning and electric plugs to charge everything. We rented cars and drove to Loreto, 20 minutes north, to shop for groceries, boat bits, tour the town, splurge on massages, have some delicious meals. We took that wonderful cooking class. We did laundry. LeeAnne and I went running on the local trails. I learned how to make sourdough bread!

And now, we're heading north. We left 2 days ago for an 8-hour passage to San Juanico, sailing about half the time in following winds, the Creature and the Jiblet (big head sail and little head sail) working in concert with the main sail to move us along.

The night before we left Puerto Escondido, a big fishing tournament was in full swing. Huge, expensive fishing boats had come in from unlikely places like Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado and Arizona and more likely places like Newport Beach, California. The marina was filled with shiny, spotless white boats with huge fishing apparatus and some very fancy bait tanks. On Saturday morning they all single-filed through the narrow channel to the sounds of a tournament leader barking orders over a loud PA. By 4pm they were dribbling back in, or sending their giant tenders with 4 huge 400HP outboards, zooming in with the days catch, submitted to be weighed and measured and recorded on the huge whiteboards (which also announced the purse - over $577,000 on Saturday night, and climbing.) The festivities were ramping up as the evening cooled, including a pig roast and a great 3-man band playing all the best rock and roll from the 60's-70's. Wandering around, we saw a few guys carving up a big yellow tail and Allan started asking questions. The next thing we knew we were buying them beer and margaritas and they were handing us bags of fresh fish.

That fresh fish was dinner after our long 8-hour day to San Juanico. LeeAnne made a sushi appetizer, I made a sourdough baguette in my solar oven and pineapple rice, and Allan perfectly cooked the yellow tail and some zucchini on our cool Australian grill/griddle. We invited our new friends Jeff and Michelle from s/v Infinite Grace to join us, and Michelle brought homemade, still-warm chocolate chip cookies. Michelle later asked: "If you're invited to dinner on someone's boat, and they say you don't need to bring anything, do they really mean it?" Since she wasn't sure, she made cookies. After very little discussion we all agreed, the answer to the question "Can I bring anything?" might sound like "No, we have lots of food! Just bring yourselves." but actually means, "Yes! Bring homemade, still-warm chocolate chip cookies!"

Yes, dinner was fantastic, but it gets even better: a lunar eclipse! After oohing and ahhing over our communally prepared meal and passing the cookie bag around a few times, we climbed on top of our cabin roof and watched while the gorgeous full moon, unhindered by any light pollution or trees or houses or antennae or power poles rose from behind the stark, jagged hills to the east. There were a few pesky clouds threatening to blow the show, but overall we got a marvelous view of the coolest lunar eclipse any of us have ever seen. When it finally eclipsed fully, where it would rest for an hour-and-a-half as a deep red orb, everyone took their leave, and Allan and I settled into our blue West Marine folding chairs and took mini-naps until the sun once again began to glow on the lower edge of the moon. I think what was so marvelous was how overtly three-dimensional the moon looked - through binoculars we could see that in fact, the moon is NOT flat after all! It's all roundy-curvy and gorgeously globe-y, and the way the light and the lack of light worked during the eclipse, it was especially clear.

Side note with no segue: On Fly Aweigh, we have a pair of white full-length IKEA curtains that hang on a spring-tension rod between the main salon (living room/dining room/office/tv room/craft room) and the cockpit (back deck.) I originally got them when we kept the boat in San Diego, on a very busy dock. At night, we were living in a fishbowl. They were temporary, I figured, easily removed once we went cruising and were at anchor most of the time. But those goofy white full-length curtains are still with us, and have been great. They can be positioned in the morning to perfectly block that intense ray of morning sunlight. When we leave the boat for an hour or so, rather than pulling the 3 doors down and closing up the whole boat, we close the curtains. It's a signal: "We're not home but we could be back at any second." We only do this in secure places. At night, in secure places, we leave the doors up and pull the curtains closed so air can still circulate, but we have some privacy.

So that's the curtain story, apropos of almost nothing, except this: today, when I came up into the salon and opened the curtains, it struck me: it's like theater: every morning, we open our curtains on a new show, often with breathtaking staging. You never know what you're in for. Today, the colorful, striated walls of San Juanico glowed a warm yellow in the morning light, the water flat and glossy, lapping up to the white sand beach, strewn with all variety of rocks. Pelicans flew just past the stern at 3 inches above the water, followed by small flocks of brown-footed boobies and the occasional cormorant, flapping along with its long neck stuck way out in anticipation of its destination. Some days the scene is gray and gloomy, some days it's a cacophony of color and texture, with boats everywhere and motors running and people talking. It's a new play right outside our back deck every day.

Yesterdays morning show opened to a brisk wind and lumpy water all around, but that didn't stop me from kayaking ashore to get some good rock-hounding in on the beach. And I saw a gob of weird bugs or crustaceans that looked like centipedes, varying in size from teeny-tiny to 3 inches. They appear to be very shy - there's no way you could ever accidentally step on one because they skitter with great speed under rocks as you approach, and look out from under, wiggling their little antennae as you go by. If you catch one unawares before it can skitter, it freezes in place and pretends it's invisible. I guess you could step on one of those. I should have been creeped-out by them but I found them quite prehistorically fascinating. They seem to like eating the kelp bits that wash up on shore, and were in profusion at the yummy snack bar left by the last tide.

After the kayak/beachwalk I joined LeeAnne on a 3-mile run/hike which was tough - we climbed a lot of ups and tried not to twist our ankles on the downs, sweating in the hot sun and sharing a warming bottle of water, but the best part about a sweaty hot run/hike is the ocean swim afterward, chilly and fantastic. We spent the rest of the day reading and being lazy.

In the evening Charlie announced on the radio that a pod of pilot whales was swimming just past their boat. The call was heard by all five of the boats in the anchorage, and for the next hour we all stood on our decks in amazement as a fairly large pod swam all around. They came up to every one of the monohulls, right alongside, then off to the next and the next - several times they made a huge loop around the bay, stopping at each boat - but ours. After the third omission we surmised it must be that our keels are very shallow at 3 ½ feet as opposed to the monohulls, which can be up to 7 feet, so maybe they weren't seeing us on their radar screens? Finally, Allan, who likes to swim with everything, donned his swimsuit and got his snorkel gear and we dinghied over to Juliet and tied off. Sure enough, in a few minutes the fourth pass came our way and he jumped in! He got within a few feet of the pod, which was swimming very close together, touching at times. It was incredible to see his pink human self surrounded by the shiny black pilot whales, who circled him a bit and then moved on. We spent the rest of the evening watching them. As the day waned they got frisky, jumping and twisting, arcing through the air. At times we could hear them talking to each other.

Kinda hard to top that one. So we had salad and went to bed. We're now on our way to Bahia Concepción, another long day. So far, flat, calm seas as we follow Juliet. Infinite Grace is behind us a bit, also bound for Concepción, so we'll likely see them again. On the northern edge of the bay is the town of Mulegé, where we plan to explore tomorrow.

Tuesday morning:
Funny how a slight rise in temperature, a sudden lack of wind, some annoying bugs, and a desolate landscape can to blow your nice sailing high. We rounded Punta Concepción after a great afternoon sail and then, bleah. The wind died. The air warmed. The bugs moved in. We circled around inside our chosen anchorage near Santispac and felt a bit desolate. Lots of boats at anchor and lots of campers on shore. It suddenly felt so public, so hot, so yucky. Why did we leave beautiful San Juanico? What are we going to do here? I was cranky.

But, along with the rise in air temperature, the water had warmed as well to a beckoning 82 degrees - a big change from the low 70's for the last 5 months. I jumped in and my mood improved markedly, further enhanced by a great meal aboard Fly Aweigh.

The next day we set out to see the town of Mulegé, but first, lunch at the airport. We have friends who, over the years, have talked fondly of flying their small planes into the Mulegé Airport and staying at the hotel the sits right beside the dirt runway. The woman at the beach campground who mans the front "gate" (a rope strewn with orange bits of fabric that she lets down to admit new campers) called a cab for us, and 45 minutes later "Nacho" showed up, ready to take us on any adventure we wanted. We started with a nice brunch at the airport hotel and got a good look at the recently-leveled and groomed dirt airstrip, then called Nacho for the next part of our day.

He was born and raised in the small town of Mulegé, which is situated along a beautiful river, with lush palms and other green stuff, quite a change from the moon-like vistas of most of the Baja peninsula. We felt a bit like we were in Egypt, along the Nile, 100 years ago. Nacho took us to the mission, built in the 1700's, and we climbed up some of the ruins to get a wonderful view of the narrow river valley. He drove us all around downtown, which is maybe 4 streets by 10 streets wide, pointed out the good taco restaurant, took us to the market and waited while we stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies, drove us around a bit more, and then back to the campground/anchorage at Santispac. It was the perfect overview from a cool, air conditioned car on a hot, dry and sleepy day, and another time, I'd love to spend more time in Mulegé in the evening, or the cool morning. We did miss touring the old prison, which was notable because of its humane practices - letting the inmates out during the day to visit family and go to their jobs. Apparently it's only open for touring in the morning.

We had talked about exploring more deeply into Bahia Concepción, which has quite a few anchorages, but we were more interested in snorkeling and finding cooler air, so we headed for Isla San Marcos, a 9 hour trip north, off the coast of Santa Rosalia. Dropped anchor, took a short nap, then had a lovely snorkel trip to the rocky shore and shared a good vegan meal of veggie patties and solar-roasted french fries.

Our boat, being a catamaran, has different characteristics at anchor than a monohull, this is due to geometry and physics and science, and since that's Allan's bag and not so much mine, we won't go into it here. But suffice it to say that most of the time at anchor we're very comfortable. Not so that night - the boat, with only one anchor out off the bow (rarely do we find ourselves in need of adding a stern anchor) the boat wanted to lay sideways to the rolling swell that came in around midnight, rocking the boat mercilessly. We looked over at Juliet and saw that she was tidily pointing right into the waves - pitching a bit but not rolling. Why we settled 90 degrees from them is due to more pesky physics but it meant we had an uncomfortable night, so Allan decided we should put out a stern anchor in the morning and try to hold the boat into the swell for a smoother ride.

As it turned out, we decided to move instead - around the corner to Sweet Pea Cove. Nice and calm in there, so we suited up and went snorkeling, had some lunch, and then got really ambitious and got all the dive gear out for a 43-minute, 43-foot dive around the rocks. Charlie manned the dinghies, anchored above us, and LeeAnne, Allan and I explored what, at first, seemed a rather dull area with lousy visibility, but on closer inspection, was loaded with treasures. We saw a number of elusive scorpion fish, a lot of rays, huge green eels, a beautiful olive-green and teal nudibranch, and some very pretty plant life.

The back side of diving is a ton of work - well, so is the front side, actually. It's all a ton of work, but we agree it's worth it. But getting all the gear out - tanks, wet suits, buoyancy compensators and regulators, fins, masks, snorkels, hoods gloves, booties - all stored in different places on the boat - putting it all on (it takes me 10 minutes and 372 grunts to pull on my 4 mil wet suit) (oh, did I mention that the water temp dropped to 68 degrees?) setting up the tanks and gear, loading it all in the dinghy, fine-tuning our rigs once we drop the little teeny-tiny dinghy anchor in a patch of sand, falling overboard, checking the gear, giving each other thumbs-up to confirm it's all working ... then, as we sink into the cool depths, it gets easy. For 42 minutes we're flying over a foreign landscape, always in awe of the abundant life of the sea. For 42 minutes there's no talking, no human noise save our bubbles. 42 minutes of private discovery, of total escape. And then, on the back end - hauling up onto the dinghy like a huge, wet sea lion, peeling all the gear off, rinsing it all off, spreading it all over the boat to dry, refilling the tanks with our dive compressor. It's a good thing we don't really have anything else on the agenda on a given day. By dinnertime we definitely enjoyed the delicious vegetarian solar-cooked enchiladas LeeAnne made as we shared our last evening at anchor with them.

We're now in Santa Rosalia, Baja California Sur, a very interesting town with a mining history that has left it quite different from most Mexican towns. After copper was discovered in the late 1800's a French company bought the mining rights and formed the Boleo Mining Company. The town that rose up around the mining business has a distinct European flair. Many homes and buildings have ornate railings and ironwork, most in desperate need of restoration or replacement, but some are well cared-for and charming. Remains of the old mining operation abound, in crumbling iron and wood buildings, rail tracks, mining apparatus and the occasional old train part on display in the parks.

The main Catholic church in town also has an interesting story: designed by Alexander Gustave Eiffel (yes, that guy) in 1884, it was a prototype for missionary churches in France's tropical colonies - our tour guide mentioned Africa - and constructed of galvanized iron to withstand severe tropical weather and termites. In 1889 the church and the Eiffel Tower were put on display at the Paris World's Exposition, where the church (not the tower!) won first prize. It was then disassembled and stored in a warehouse in Brussels. Years later, the Boleo Mining Company bought it, shipped it to Santa Rosalia and had it reassembled.

We peeked inside the church in the cooler evening, wondering what it might be like with the blazing summer heat of Baja cooking the steel roof. But it is fun to look at. Allan, who's done a bit of riveting on airplanes, wondered if the huge rivets were all drilled out after the Paris Expo, and then re-riveted in México, quite a task.

We've had some good meals here - last night we had a "veggie burger" that turned out to be a huge pile of fresh, thinly-sliced carrots, zucchini, onions, and portabello mushrooms sauteed to perfection and layered on a huge hamburger bun. It was impossible to eat as a burger - all the parts wanted to slide around - but disassembled, it was delicious.

We managed to get a slip in the tiny marina here, even though we were told there was no room for our fat little boat. We watched Juliet glide into her slip near the ramp while we dropped anchor in the marina anchorage, and just as we finished that process Charlie called and said they had a spot - wedged into a double slip next to a lovely old Hans Christian monohull. We fit perfectly, and have enjoyed the opportunity to wash and polish the salty boat, do laundry and all that stuff that never goes away.

There's a production company that's taken up residence for 10 weeks here in the empty marina offices, creating a 6-part mini-series for Netflix called "American Jesus." (https://www.netflix.com/mx-en/title/80217665) We had fun meeting the production designer, Salvador Parra, (salvadorparra.com.mx) who gave us the run-down on the whole story and showed us his work, quite fascinating! They've got wardrobe (ramping up the costumes today, we saw some of the things Salvador had rendered come to life, with bird-like capes and lavish head dresses), casting, makeup, production, and who-knows-what-else going on there, and it will be fun to see the show once it's aired.

We'd planned to leave yesterday morning, so the night before we invited LeeAnne and Charlie and Bubba (who abstains, preferring to Hoover the carpets and mooch snacks) to share a lovely bottle of champagne that a friend gave us before we left, exactly 6 months ago to the day. We toasted to the last almost 4 months we've had wandering around Mexico together, to the many things we learned from each other, to the wonderful adventures we've had. We proclaimed our sadness at losing our little buddy Bubba, who is so damn cute to see when they come over in the dinghy - the closer they got to our boat, the more he wiggled and danced with his front paws on the bow of the rubber dinghy, making us feel terribly loved.

And then Allan and I decided we wanted one more day here, so we had a second goodbye last night on Fly Aweigh and took ourselves out for breakfast this morning.

And now we leave for parts south, to retrace our footsteps toward Cabo, visit a few anchorages we loved and want to see again, and find some new ones. Meanwhile, Juliet heads north and then east to spend the hot summer in Puerto Peñasco while the three of them hang out in San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca, Mexico. So farewell to the lovely Juliet, to calm and sage-like Charlie, to energetic, positive and fun LeeAnne, and to darling fuzzy Bubba, until we meet again!

A bunch of new photos in the Gallery, the album name is "Sea of Cortez II".

Here we are:
https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/SV_FlyAweigh/