Sequitur

At 1010 on Thursday we weighed anchor, headed out of Ensenada Gallo and turned northward to pass between the ensenada's northern headland and Isla Gallo, which lays a quarter mile off. A couple of headlands further along, we altered in to Ensenada de La Ballena to see what the anchorage was like. We liked what we saw, and at 1105 came to 14 metres on the Rocna anchor in 3.5 metres of water about a cable off the white sand beach at the bay's head and half a cable off the cliffs standing directly out of the water to the north. The water was so clear we could see bottom.



We were nicely tucked in, protected from the north and northeast winds, which had been forecast. The skies were clear, the temperature was just passing through 25 on its way to the midday norm of 27 or 28 and it was Christmas Eve. We thought back on our last Christmas Eve, when I had taken the water taxi to Snug Cove on Bowen Island to dig Sequitur out from under the half metre of snow that had thus far accumulated in an ongoing storm.

The environment here is but one of many dramatic changes we have experienced in the past year. I closed-down a company I had started in 1987, I passed on my Power & Sail Squadron Commander's gavel and my gavel as President of the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association, we moved out of our houses and I sold mine, we moved aboard Sequitur and became nomads, we sold our cars and for the first time since 1960 I was carless. The biggest loss of the year was our little poodle, Chianti, who died a few weeks short of sixteen years old, and two days before our leaving Vancouver. Through all these changes, Edi and I watched with delight as our rather new relationship deepened and flourished.

But here we were now, in Ensenada de La Ballena anchored in pale green waters under deep blue skies with a light breeze cooling the sun's heat. We decided to take a picnic lunch ashore and find a place on the cliff top to relax and enjoy it. Edi made some wonderful paninis, cored and wedged some apples and filled our thermoses with hot tea, and off we went in the dinghy to the near end of the white sand beach.



We followed a natural route up a draw where the beach met the cliffs and we were soon scrambling over the last few blocks to the ridge top. The top was very flat, and being mostly solid rock, it was quite barren, with the desert vegetation holding on only in those few pockets and cracks where over the millennia sufficient soil had gathered to provide a nurturing environment.

On the north side, the ridge is separated from the next headland by a deep ravine, down which runs a stream bed. Dry now, it showed all the evidence of being a very active, bubbling stream during the brief periods of summer rains. The rocks in it were well polished by the waters of many summer rainstorms, and the play of colours left on the rocks easily tricked our eyes into seeing reflecting pools of clear water and streams still flowing over small cascades. It was a wonderful mirage.



We meandered down the gently sloping slab to its end, and then back along the cliff tops looking for a nice natural picnic bench overlooking the bay. The pink stone here has a honeycombed or sponge-like structure, which in exposed areas appears to have been wind-sculptured into even more intricate designs. Below, the seas had eroded great hollows and overhangs, so we exercised caution lest the stone was waiting for only our additional weight to finish its slow process of going to sea.

We sat on a wonderfully sculpted slab of pink stone, enjoying our lunch and counting our blessings.