While we were anchored in Bahia San Gabriel, the Norther had its way with the Sea of Cortez for a couple of days, creating steep square waves that would have been no fun at all to sail in. The highest gust we saw was 37 knots, but the sustained winds were 15-30 knots for a couple of days. Our plan had worked though: we and all the boats sheltered in Bahia San Gabriel were snug and safe; while the wind blew hard, there were none of those big square waves or swells to bother us.

When the wind died down on the second morning, Eric and I floated our dinghy and went to visit the other boats in the anchorage, to introduce ourselves to the cruisers we hadn't met yet, and say hello again to those we had. While we were visiting with the crew of Iolani, we were visited by Michel, the skipper of the nearby catamaran. Michel and his family had spent most of the past five years sailing in the South Pacific and had lots of great advice for Iolani's crew, who are planning to do the Pacific Puddle Jump in the springtime.

As Thanksgiving was approaching, we invited all five boats to a Thanksgiving potluck aboard SCOOTS. Most of the crews were in the same state that we were - finishing up a long stint in anchorages and needing to reprovision soon - so people brought what they could. Eric even made two pumpkin pies (a nod to Debbie from Impulsive for lending us some Crisco and a couple of extra eggs). We had a very fine and eclectic feast!


Thanksgiving aboard SCOOTS

Gathered aboard SCOOTS for food, fun and conversation on Thanksgiving day were six Americans, two Canadians, and a French family of four. One of the wonderful aspects of cruising is how open cruisers are to sharing with other members of the cruising community, whether it be parts, expertise, food, advice, or whatever.

Once the weather calmed down completely, and the water returned to its glassy state, Eric and I took the dinghy to the point and went snorkeling among the rocks and coral there. We saw many kinds of colorful reef fish, some puffer fish, and even one moray eel.

Speaking of puffer fish...we see lots of these sad-eyed fish cruising around over the sand in the anchorages; we see even more of their dessicated carcasses strewn on the beach. Eric and I wondered if anything eats puffer fish, or whether they just die of old age and then wash up. We've also seen a few floating belly up on the surface of the water, completely inflated and looking like an agitated Mrs. Puffs from "Sponge Bob."



One day I went for a walk along one of the long white sand beaches (I don't think I will ever get tired of these). I am still completely taken by the color of the water...so many shades of turquoise and green! I remembered to do the "sting ray shuffle" when I got out of the dinghy in the shallows, as a woman from one of the other boats warned me that she had stepped on a stingray in that bay the previous year and received a painful wound. I did see one stingray scoot away, but I didn't step on any.


The latest white sand beach

Bahia San Gabriel abounds with magnificent frigatebirds! All day long, these huge birds form up by the hundreds into giant swirling spirals, riding the thermals over the water and shore. They are amazing aviators. As I was walking the beach, I noticed that many of the frigatebirds, were swooping down into the dry scrubby terrain behind the beach. Why were they doing this? There certainly weren't any fish back there. I was perplexed...and intrigued. I watched them for awhile, trying to solve this mystery. Each bird would circle over the beach, then head back behind the beach, swoop down into the shrubby trees as if they were trying to catch something there, then rise into the air and circle around again. And they were almost all males. Hmm.

Eventually, I saw one of the birds rise into the air with something in his beak. Twigs! I followed this guy with my binoculars and saw that he flew off to some low mangroves along the other side of the bay where the trees were bristling with thousands of female frigatebirds...a frigatebird rookery! Later in the week, Eric and I took our dinghy over to take a closer look at the rookery. There were thousands of juvenile and adult frigatebirds of both genders. It was amazing!


A frigatebird rookery!

Also along the shore there was an abandoned pearl fishery. Only the lagoons and rock walls remained, but you could tell that it had once been a very busy place.

Besides many birds, Bahia San Gabriel also abounded with honeybees, many of whom came to visit us aboard SCOOTS. We'd been forewarned that they would be looking for sources of fresh water, so we did our best to keep a dry ship, although the clever girls kept finding sources on our boat (like sucking it out of the faucet aerator), and then telling their sisters, who also came aboard. We kept removing these sources and keeping things as dry as possible, and burning mosquito coils, to dissuade them from hanging out with us. I also put a bowl of water on the deck, to give them an easy source of water OUTSIDE the boat, which they eventually partook of. The bees weren't aggressive at all, but it was a bit unnerving to have them buzzing around our sinks and cabin, and underfoot.

On the boat project front, we'd noticed that we were unable to hear much of the local radio nets on the VHF radio. Eric did some troubleshooting (he does that a lot) and determined that the masthead antenna wasn't working well. So, on one of those glassy mornings, he climbed the mast and replaced the antenna with a new one. Now we can hear everything!


Eric up the mast

Michel gave Eric a memory stick containing many of his boat's GPS tracks into and out of atolls and lagoons in the South Pacific, as well as a program that allows you to overlay satellite photos onto your navigation program. That is very cool! You can even zoom in and see the individual coral heads lurking in lagoons.

Our next port of call is Marina Cortez, in La Paz. We've heard a lot about La Paz and are looking forward to pulling into a slip, doing some laundry and reprovisioning, taking care of some boat projects, visiting with friends, and exploring the town.