NEOS Log
May, 2011

We spent the first half of May exploring the coves and bays of the two islands just north of the mainland; Espiritu Santo and Partida. Once out of La Paz, we took a 27 mile sail to our northernmost destination and anchored in Ensenada Grande. How fun to be under full sail!!! It was still too chilly to get in the water, but we explored the coastline by dinghy and marveled at the rock formations. The northern shore has rocks cloaked with a veil of thin rock that looks like moss. Others have shells embedded in their pockmarked surface. I keep thinking of my geologist-niece, Liz, as the formations mystify yet fascinate me.

Our next stop was 5 miles south at Caleta Partida. This is the cut between the two islands of Partida and Espiritu Santo. At low tide, the bar between them is very shallow but at high tide you can zigzag to the east side. We watched a number of fishermen do this and, from the boat, it looked like they were moving on sand. Weird! We had a local fisherman who came to the boat just as we anchored and asked for a fuse for his antique cell phone. It reminded us of our very first “cell” phone back about 20 years ago. It had a huge battery pack and weighed about 5 pounds. It was a car phone. Not something you would carry around with you. We supplied the fuse and chatted a while. He returned the next day asking for some AAA alkaline batteries but this time he paid for it with a couple of fresh fish fillets. Great trade as far as we were concerned!
Next stop: Seven miles to Ensenada Gallina. From our anchored position, we could look out at the large Isla Gallo and the small Isla Gallina, both just a bit south of Isla Ballena. On our dinghy rides around the edge of the bay we discovered a number of reefs and were able to see the fish from the surface, it was so clear. Can’t wait for the water to warm up a bit!!
Our friend, Jim Nordstrum, is crewing Lioness on a delivery run and was scheduled to arrive on the 12th, so we headed back towards La Paz. It was a wild ride south with 10-15 knot SW winds so we nixed the idea of stopping at Bahia San Gabriel and went all of the way to Balandra again. Along the way, we had 2 whales give us quite a show. They were about ¾ mile ahead of us when they did some fantastic leaps completely out of the water. As we approached, they continued cavorting and splashing. Absolutely awesome.

Balandra was its typical windy anchorage but we had 2 special events this time. The first was a boatload of wild and crazy drunks who had jet skis. They kept the anchorage choppy and noisy and when the wind started howling after sunset, they started dragging. In the middle of the night they finally lifted anchor and reanchored. Unfortunately, they anchored near the reef and when we woke up the next morning, they were hopelessly stuck with their prop in the rocks. Bummer. That will sober you up quick. The other incident was a friendly visitor; a small black bird who made himself right at home and didn’t seem to be bothered at all how close we got to him. I thought he was sick so I gave him a pancake and a small dish of water. He munched away and seemed quite pleased with our hospitality. After about an hour, I was fed up with his calling cards and tried to shoo him away. He merely flew up to the top of the bimini.

Luckily we were planning to head out anyway and he took flight before we left the bay. We met up with Gato Go later in La Paz and they said that he was aboard their boat in Balandra as well. Guess he is the local schmoozer.
We did a final stop in Caleta Lobos for 2 nights before heading into La Paz. Lioness arrived and took a slip in Costa Baja and we made contact to meet the next morning in La Paz after they got some much needed rest. Apparently Bob Lyon joined on as crew as well so we will be able to see him too.
Anchored in front of Applebee’s in La Paz, we spent the day doing our “civilization chores”. After dumping our accumulated garbage and filling the water jugs, we headed to the internet coffee shop where I could get our bills paid while Rog got his caffeine fix. I was already hot and thirsty, so I ordered what I thought was a smoothie but turned out to be a frozen coffee drink. It actually had enough chocolate in it to make it palatable and I ended up drinking about half of it. For the rest of the day I buzzed on the caffeine high. Yuck! We headed up the hill to provision at Leys and enjoy the $1 sandwiches for lunch. The taxi took us back to the marina and we had a wild bumpy ride back to NEOS. The wind was on our nose and we (and most of the groceries) were soaked by the time we got everything aboard.

The next day, we connected with Jim and Bob and they decided to take the shuttle from Costa Baja and meet us at Marina La Paz. We waited for a couple of hours and headed into the marina where we waited for another hour before they finally arrived. Between missing the shuttle and forgetting to change their watches from Puerto Vallarta time the trip into town ended up taking 3 hours. We walked a few blocks up to the Super Burro and grabbed lunch, then we brought the guys out to Neos where we spent the afternoon playing 64. Rog dinghied them to the municipal pier and we made plans to meet everyone the next day at Costa Baja.
Friday the 13th turned out to be quite a day. Rog and I headed out to Costa Baja and arrived earlier than we expected. Rog was able to get the portable VHF working and I tried to contact Lioness when we arrived. We heard them calling us but were not able to get any further communication. So we headed through the marina to find them. When we got to the guard station at the head of their docks, the security guard only spoke Spanish. I understood him to say that Lioness left about 15 minutes earlier. That would have been about when I had called on the VHF so we figured they went to find us. So we walked all over the marina area for the next hour. We grabbed some lunch and then headed back to the dock to find their boat. We snuck through a gate and walked every dock. No Lioness anywhere. Back to La Paz, we got on Neos by about 4pm exhausted. Our guess was that they had to leave and get Lioness over to Bahia Falsa and had no way to contact us.

Lioness had an appointment to load onto Dockwise at 7am the next morning. They got back to La Paz about 9am and called us from the marina. They had 2 huge bags of groceries for us. We took the dinghy in and picked up the loot and then picked Jim and Bob up at the beach a couple of hours later after they had breakfast and did their internet time. I had planned to make a pizza for everyone, but Dave (the captain of Lioness) needed to work on the computer all day and made plans to meet everyone for dinner so the pizza dough went into the fridge for another day. After 3 rounds of 64, we headed in to the marina to meet Dave and had a delightful dinner at a palapa restaurant. The waiter was a hoot and the food was delicious. It was a great evening. We bid our farewells to Bob and Dave and brought Jim back to NEOS to spend a week with us.
The next morning we woke up to west winds. The boats that we thought we were a safe distance from were uncomfortable close. Turns out they were all on unmarked moorings. Time to leave. We pulled up anchor and headed to Bahia Falsa where Dockwise was still anchored. We pulled deep into the bay and were far away from Dockwise and the other boat that was anchored in the bay. Jim and Rog could swim to the rocky shore from the boat and spent an hour or two diving for mussels and scallops. A new experience for us and we enjoyed the tasty treats for a couple of nights.

Since we only had a week with Jim aboard, we did daily hops; Falsa to Lobos to Gallina to Gabriel to Balandra. We began swimming daily, diving for more mussels when we could. Daily card games and lots of kick back reading and relaxing. The only negative of the whole week was the west wind that hit us in Gabriel. It felt like we were in a washing machine all night. Nobody got much sleep. It is a beautiful bay, but has no protection from the west. We returned to La Paz on Friday afternoon where we played our final rounds of 64 before delivering Jim to the beach at 7am the next morning. He caught a flight to Mazatlan at 10:30 and spent the rest of the day working his way to Puerto Vallarta, arriving by bus early Sunday morning. Meanwhile, we spent the day doing laundry and running to Leys for another provisioning run. Sunday morning we headed to Balandra to meet up with our friends on Amizade. Naomi and Andrew arrived from Banderas Bay later that afternoon.

We picked them up in our dinghy and brought them over to NEOS for strawberries and chocolate. What great fun catching up with them! They have a few errands to do in La Paz so will be heading in while we continue heading north. We will catch up again sometime in the next few months.
After an overnight stop at Ensenada Cardonal, we sailed to Isla Francisco. The wind was low but steady and Rog got inspired to put out the drifter.

It has been years since he dragged that sucker out, but we were glad he did. We had a relaxing, glorious sail for a couple of hours until the wind died completely. We took a dinghy ride into the beach and hiked all over the island. The fauna is so strikingly different than anything I have ever seen before. We also saw the man-made salt flats that the locals used in the days before refrigeration to preserve their fish for transport.

Back at Neos, our boat neighbors David and Caroline on Aztec invited us to join them at 4pm along with the boat on the other side of them. Turns out the other boat was Santosha. We had met Patrick and Tami (and son, Jack) in Tenacatito before Thanksgiving last year. They were heading to Panama with another couple. So we were quite surprised to see them here. Turns out they got tired of waiting for weather in Huatulco and turned around to see the Sea of Cortez . They are now heading to La Paz and will be flying home to the States for the summer. We hope to see them in October and may even head to Copper Canyon with them after hurricane season.

Heading further up the coast, our destinations were planned around the weather. If the wind was blowing into one anchorage, we would head to the next one. Anchorages are every 5-10 miles, so we have lots of options. We ended up in San Evaristo and then had a fabulous sail 27 miles up to Timbabiche. We were glad that we were heading north and not south like Aztec and Santosha. LOVE that sailing!!! The channel between the mainland and the islands is full of wildlife.

We were visited by a sea lion and her pup, saw LOTS of dolphins and the anchorages are full of rays that jump out of the water and plop back down (we call them popcorn rays). At Timbabiche, a local by the name of Manuel came by in his panga selling embroidered hand towels and fish. We passed on his offer, but I later realized that I need to start buying this junk. It puts money into poor families who need help. They aren’t begging and I really need to start being more generous.

It was pretty rolly in Timbabiche and we hopped to Los Gatos the next day. It was only 3 miles north but it was better protected. There was only one other boat there; he had tried to anchor in Timbabiche the day before and gave up.
Heading to Agua Verde, we again sailed about half of the trip. Agua Verde is beautiful and we anchored in the south cove with one other boat. We were able to snorkel the reef at the pyramids one day and went out to Roca Solitaire to snorkel the next day. We have finally found some snorkel spots with as many fish as the Caribbean. The coral isn’t as nice, but there are hundreds of fish and the water is crystal clear. We had a ball and spent 3 nights here. On our second day, motor boats started arriving from Loreto and set up a camp at the beach in our cove. Boats came and left but there were always at least 7 boats and lots of folks having fun.

So May ends with us enjoying the snorkeling, clear waters, and warm days while the poor folks back home are still getting tornadoes and hailstorms. We haven’t seen one drop of rain since October and don’t even miss it anymore!