(update 6-21-11, i have tried to post this three times, now i'm officially waaay behind...)

For the past few days the Sailblog system has been
non-functional, providing an adequate excuse for not
blogging...although now it feels as though I've lost a week somewhere along the way.

We left the Coyote Cove at Bahia Concepcion and headed out for Punta Chivato. Never did get to encounter that
whale shark that folks kept talking about, but I did get to
see some great photos of it taken by a fellow
sailor. He also inspired me with his underwater camera
rig...trying to think if I'd be too much of a poser with
that kind of setup!

We took our time en route to Punta Chivato so that we could
enjoy a novel concept...it's called sailing. It
felt fantastic to enjoy a few hours of slow and
steady. As always, the wind pretty much conspired against us, but not being in a hurry allowed us to obey it's
direction and travel twice as far in half as much time.

At Punta Chivato we were treated to an amazing sunset,
moonrise and sunrise as it's a pretty open anchorage.
We went exploring ashore and found that, just as the
guidebook said, the beach is piled high and deep with
shells. Of course I assembled a collection that will
make the most brilliant and charming sounding mobile
;-). We practiced dinghy landings with some steep
sand/shell walls (read: no one drowned). Our initial
quest was for a cold one and the internet connection at the
Posada de las Flores, but despite our struggles to actually
make it to the place, found them closed up until
October. Their balcony was gorgeous, even without
internet and drink service.

Punta Chivato had a curious collection of sprawling homes
for folks who enjoy desert sports, most of the garage doors
were super high, indicating toy trailers and r/vs and
such. Solar panels, water tanks, an airstrip and
proximity to Mulege allow enough 'infrastructure' to support
these 2nd or 3rd homes (??)

From Punta Chivato we headed out toward Santa
Rosalia. This time there would be no “slow” going,
as the wind was absolutley non-existent. We motored
for quite a while, and as we started getting closer to
Isla San Marcos we were both saying “wow, it sure smells
funky.” I kept looking over to the island for
evidence of major guano or something. There's mining
there, and a community of 600 or so, so I just wasn't sure
to make of it. Eventually, I turned my head the other
direction... “HOLY Smokes!” there was a feeding
frenzy going on, almost as far as the eye could see, a major
school of dolphins was chasing what would have been an even
bigger school of fish. Home Town Buffet!

Apply brakes, go investigate dolphins. But wait,
there's more... In front of the dolphins were several pods of pilot whales. I have never seen so many pilot whales together, it was stunning. We hung out with the whales for a while, then decided to get back to moving on. Every now and then for the next hour or so, we'd
come across another pod of pilot whales. What a treat!

To cap off our multisensory whale experience, the wind
decided to give us enough of a boost and angle to set up and
practice sailing with our gennaker. Once again, not
being in a hurry helped. I think we had about 6 knots
of wind, and with just the gennaker up we were doing about 4
knots, not bad. We never did put up the main, kind of
a dumb thing but we were more curious about playing with the
gennaker. Paul has decided that a real spinnaker is on
the list now after watching John Kirchner videos on-0
line. Apparently, if you're sailing the trades, you
“gotta” have one. Ok by me, but in terms of
storage, do you think we can use some of these extra sails as bedsheets?

By the time we got to Santa Rosalia, there was 'no room at
the inn' in any the marinas, so we anchored out in the
harbor. Forget what you thought about CA being the
setting for Steinbeck's Cannery Row...it had to have
been here....
More later - adios for now.
Pamela
###