01/17/14
We awoke to a beautIful morning, clear and breezy. We started a bit slowly due to the many drinks and shots that Gravel kept serving us the night before. True Companion was just weighing anchor, getting an early start on their move to Isla San Francisco, about 20 miles to the north. If we are able to change Susan's airline ticket, we might join them later. We are going to head south back to Bahia San Gabriel and see if we can get phone service to change Susan's flight. We paddle boarded to the beach and then went for a challenging hike. The views of the anchorage were spectacular, and we saw some caves and lots of different kinds of cactus. We paddled back along the cliffs to try to spot some fish, but only saw a few small ones. Back on the boat, the bottom was visible and we could see several puffer fish cruising around.
We weighed anchor and were under way by noon. We arrived back in Bahia San Gabriel in two hours. On the way, we read our cruiser's guide, which gives details about each of the many anchorages that we passed. After dropping anchor, I realized that I forgot to reel in our trolling line. As I've done in the past, when reversing the boat to set the anchor, the forgotten fishing line gets sucked into the prop and shaft. Damn! So a quick dive over the side with mask and fins and scissors took care of the line wrap. After that we took the stand up paddle boards (SUPs) to the beach. This bay is extremely shallow so our trip to the beach was about a mile. We walked up and down the stunning beach, wading through tidal pools and looking for sea life. Bright white sand coupled with turquoise water. Simply amazing. We did manage to see some sting rays and fish as we paddled over the shallows. As I am sitting in the cockpit now, drink in hand, writing this, I keep hearing "popping" sounds. Looking up, I realize the the bat rays are leaping out of the water about a quarter of a mile away. They belly flop so hard that you can hear the "pop". Too funny, they look like they are having a blast. We are looking forward to burgers with stir fry veggies for dinner. In the morning we plan to SUP to the beach again, bringing our shoes. Then we will hike to the east side of the island to a place called Playa La Bonanza. Then it's back to La Paz so that Susan can catch her flight on Sunday (we were unable to change her ticket without paying $200).
The trip to La Paz took just over 3 hours motoring, with the wind shifting from 15 kts to nonexistent the whole way. I was a bit nervous about pulling into the dock because I had botched it so badly the last time. This time it went smoothly, with no near- collisions to be found (yay). Once we were tied up, we showered and then headed over to a beach party hosted the local cruisers club.