Today is day 7 since leaving La Paz. All is well aboard Scott Free and we are in our groove. As a recap of this first week we spent one night at Caleta Partida then moved on to Isla San Francisco. I was working through the bug I caught from the raw egg in my Caesar Salad and Lynsie was being a trouper taking care of herself and me when needed.
We spent 3 days and nights at Isla San Francisco where everyday there were mega yachts arriving unloading people and jet skis, ski boats towing wake boarders etc. We did get some good beach combing done and Lynsie hiked the ridge, by herself as I wasn't yet up to it. Monday we had an overcast day with some rain even, enough to wet the decks and leak inside from a window. It did clear later in the afternoon. We were starting to get anxious to move and I was feeling better so after listening to the weather on Wednesday morning we set off to continue our journey north. The next stop was Los Gatos, where we would take our hammer to shore and search for Geodes. Since Lynsie was a little girl she and I would sit at the beach and on the riverbank finding rocks to crack open in the hopes of finding a treasure inside. It was this that caused my great excitement a year and a half ago when I found my first Geode so of course I wanted to share this place with Lynsie in the hope she would find her treasure inside.
The trip north was uneventful except that now that I was feeling better Lynsie experienced one of her vertigo/migraine episodes and spent most of the day down below sleeping. I can handle things alone but took in the fishing gear as hooking up fish by myself while motoring and running the watermaker would be too much. We did get a couple good hits before Lynsie went to lie down and the gear came in. Lynsie came up to help with anchoring and we got set in about 8 feet of water under the keel. A little skinning but we were in a good spot with only one other boat anchored there. I dove in and saw that our anchor was well set, plenty buried in the sand and we had 100 feet of chain out so although I would sleep with the depth sounder on all would be fine. I should also mention that the GPS fix that gets lost is only after about 45 to 60 minutes after things get heated up leading me to believe it is a loose connection on the back of the unit that will wait for Scott to return and fix. I have to make sure he knows he is needed so I'm building a list!
The day was late and Lynsie wasn't feeling well so we just laid low taking a brief tour in the dingy so we could see the reefs and some fishes. We stopped by to chat with the other boat in the anchorage. It was a couple of guys out of San Diego heading north. They had hooked a nice
Dorado but had already given what they couldn't eat away to Manuel the panga fisherman who had come by before our arrival. Not to worry, we have chicken. We spent a quiet night at anchor with virtually no wind running the generator so we could watch a movie and charge toothbrush and camera batteries.

The next day after breakfast and coffee we grabbed the pack, a bottle of water and our hammer and set off for shore in search of hidden treasures inside of rocks, well, and a little beach combing too as Lynsie is hooked on finding the little sea buttons and this beach is known to have them.
Once ashore we started first looking for geodes before it got too warm or the tide came in. Oh, first before we left the boat we took another look at my geodes so we would have a good idea what rocks to look for. On almost her first rock she hits and she scores!!!! She found a nice one and is now hooked hammering every rock she sees. She walks away with about 4 rocks and pieces and about half a dozen sea buttons. It is time to return to the boat to look at our spoils.

As we reach the boat we see bees buzzing around, oh no, Lynsie has make it perfectly clear she hates bees thanks to an encounter with a nest that had her swarmed as a little one. Oh god, what are we going to do, she climbs aboard and starts screaming. I drift away from the boat as I wasn't tied off and had to restart the motor to get back and tie off. I throw everything from the dingy aboard and survey the situation. Pretty bad, about 150 bees are down below buzzing around and on the wet dish cloth with more flying around outside trying to get in. I send her forward with the fly swatter (still screaming) and go below. My first thought was to throw the cloth outside but there are too many bees to get close to it so I decide we have to leave. I open the forward hatches and climb to the cockpit closing the doors behind me. I have to get Lynsie back to the cockpit so we can pull anchor and leave. I start the engine and start pulling anchor telling Lynsie when we start to move she has to take the helm and follow our track on the chartplotter out to deep water.

Well, a couple of false starts, after getting the anchor almost up when I go to spin it I forgot to lock it off so down it falls again and just when Lynsie starts jumping more and screaming that they are touching her. I go back to the cockpit make sure all is well and tell her "two minutes, just do this two minutes and I'll take over". We get the anchor raised and I take the helm looking to find deep water so I can accelerate and cause enough breeze to get the bees out of the boat.

We did live but about 2 dozen bees didn't. No one got stung; the funny thing is, these bees are not aggressive at all only thirsty! Lynsie is happy to hear that I've never seen bees at Aqua Verde, our next stop. She is just shaking from the fear and adrenaline.

We hook a nice size Dorado but it rips the swivel on the line straight and takes our lure, damn! No joy the rest of the way fishing. I have the gps off letting it stay cool as I have a reef to pick through on my way to Agua Verde only turning it on for brief moments to make sure we are lined up for the way points through the cut. Once through I remember a little bay just outside and south of Aqua Verde that Scott and I saw a couple boats in this spring and taking a vote aboard, we decide to try it.

We've been here about 24 hours now and are loving it. There aren't the pangas driving in and out, no other boats and nice calm water. Over night we had a nice breeze offshore to make things bearable and are now on our way climbing to 100+ degrees. The air is drier and we have already been snorkeling thinking about jumping in again. Things just couldn't be better even perfect!