The weather was so good on our way here from Turtle Bay that everybody was in a good mood. The water was glassy calm well into the afternoon, and the air was cool and the sun was warm. This must be why the fishermen gave us all that lobster. And the octopus.

We left Turtle Bay at 0745 after listening to the weather and having it pronounced fine, clear and easy to predict. A Pineapple Express trailing off from the ITCZ put enough broken grey clouds overhead to make it a beautiful sunrise. The anchor came up with mud on it for the first time since I don't know when: Usually we're anchored on sand in Mexico.

By 1130 we were sunning ourselves in the Dewey Channel off Punta Eugenia, dodging the lobster pot buoys. Fishing boats buzzed back and forth with friendly waves; even the big San Diego charter boat seemed jaunty as it cut politely behind us, its short deep-sea rods bristling.

Around 1145 a big yellow panga came by our port side, one of its three crew holding up a struggling lobster. As they got close, he tossed it carefully into our cockpit. Then they told us to slow down, and sped over to a nearby buoy. Pulling it up, they extracted more treasures, and then came over to toss us three more lobsters and a two-foot-long octopus.

While these creatures thrashed around in our cockpit (by now I'd donned gloves) we asked the fishermen what they wanted in exchange. They said, "No! Nothing!" but eventually let us give them a big bag of M&Ms and a bottle of Pepto-Bismol: One of the poor guys was seasick. A few very hearty hello's later, we were on our separate ways again. What moving generosity!

The octopus glared at us so balefully that we had to return it to the sea, but within an hour we had boiled lobster tails over rice, with lime juice drizzled over.

The rest of our trip is not worth recounting, except to note that it was very long. The moon was out and the crisp November weather cooperated beautifully. We're now in Fondeadero San Carlos, a marginal anchorage off a twenty-five-house village just for the afternoon and overnight. We'll leave at dawn tomorrow, clearing risky Sacramento Reef by late morning, aiming for San Quintin by nightfall.