NEOS LOG June 2012

With Katie still with us, we arrived in Agua Verde to beautiful waters and only a few other boats. After a day of rest and snorkeling, we hit the trail and went to visit the cave paintings. It was a bit warmer than during our visit last month, but that didn’t stop Katie from spending an additional hour exploring the other caves on the hillside while Rog and I relaxed on the beach. We were pretty bushed by the time we got back to our dinghy on the beach. We spent a few more days here, enjoying the snorkeling and playing a different game every evening. We made Katie sit through “Captain Ron” so she is righteously initiated as a cruiser now. In exchange, Katie has introduced us to all sorts of herbal teas she makes, as well as a wonderful skin lotion she created. I think we got the better end of the deal! She also introduced us to TED and I foolishly downloaded so many TED talks that I overspent my monthly GB allowance!

We leisurely headed north and tried to get into Candeleros Chico but it already had 2 boats in it. We spent a week or so there last year and loved it. It is comfortable for one boat with great snorkeling. But it wasn’t meant to be, so we joined the flotilla at Candeleros. There must have been 25 boats here. We were immediately visited by Tom from Eagle and then Dick from Trinity. I told Dick that Rog had a new Kindle and he ran over to his boat and came back with some downloadable mobi files for him. Now he has more reading material than he will EVER get through! Late in the afternoon, when we thought it would be cool enough, we headed into shore and took Katie on the nature trail that lead to the ridge. Again, a bit hotter than our last trek here. Luckily, by the time we made it back to the resort, hot and sweaty, we had our swimsuits on and relaxed in their pool with other cruisers for an hour or so.

The next morning we dinghied to the small town at the west end of the anchorage and hiked through mud to the store where we bought a few fresh veggies and Katie treated me to an ice cream. Back to the boat where we pulled up anchor and headed to Marquer under full sail. There were a few times we needed the engine to get us to the next puff of wind, but we made it! Katie enjoyed the kayak here and scoured the beaches for valuable treasures. Although there have been dolphins for Katie to see, we decided to take her up to Coronados where they come into the anchorage every day. Marquer had too many bees anyway! It was a quick motor trip north and we were pleased to see Bella Brisa in the anchorage. They joined us for an afternoon chat and we caught up with each other’s adventures. Katie had dolphins most of the afternoon and the next morning was ready with the kayak when they arrived. She chased them around the anchorage and was fairly far out when she got an additional, once in a lifetime, visit from a whale. I can’t imagine the thrill of being in a kayak less than 500 feet from one of these gentle giants. He played on the surface for a short while, then took a dive, showed us his tail and dove down. What a show! Hard to get these things to happen for our guests. But we try! We followed that excitement up with a hike on the island and along the beach.

The next day we motored down to Loreto for Katie’s departure. We headed into town and Katie hit the souvenir shops one more time. After an ice cream, we found a taxi driver who agreed to come for Katie at the marina at 2pm. Back to NEOS for lunch and a final game of 64 and we had Katie safely in the taxi and on her way. The wind had picked up a bit, so we immediately lifted anchor and headed back to Coronados. We anchored in Coronados about the same time Katie’s plane was supposedly leaving Loreto. Unfortunately, the flight was cancelled for mechanical problems and Katie ended up spending an extra night in Loreto on Alaska Airline’s dime and flying out Sunday. Our Sunday was a relaxing one doing laundry and missing the company. Bella Brisa joined us for a late afternoon get-together. They are becoming quite the fishermen and gave us a few filets. In exchange, we taught them Farkel. Sounds like a fair exchange to me! Monday we headed back to Loreto to provision. We decided to try the Reygoza store this time and, even though I had left the map on the boat, we found it fairly easily. We filled the buggy and headed back to NEOS for an afternoon trip further south to Nopolo. Jake and Sharon of “Jake” came by in their dinghy soon after we arrived and introduced themselves. They told us that the resort at the beach welcomed cruisers and had a nice pool. So late that afternoon we headed over for a dip in fresh water joining Jake and True Love. Rog had a cold cerveza and we lounged around the pool. Turns out this was the same resort that Katie stayed at two nights before! We spent an additional day, filled the water tanks and transferred fuel from one tank to the other. Then we headed down to Juncalito for a day before making the short trek into Escondido to do our check up on Rock N Roll. We had hoped to anchor outside but the shore is way too deep and there was a boat in the one spot we thought we could drop the hook near Oasis. So we headed inside and dropped the anchor finding ourselves near friends Bella Brisa again! We dinghied over to Rock N Roll and did our chores and then headed back to NEOS to pick up the shade. There is a palapa on the shore with a large stone floor. Looked like a perfect spot for installing grommets. Rich greeted us in his dinghy as he headed to shore. Sounds like we will probably not see them until we head back to La Paz in the fall. We continued on to shore and Rog installed all of the grommets we needed. Since we were not planning on a paid stay, we returned to NEOS and pulled up anchor, heading over to Danzante where our cove was waiting for us.

We spent a full week in our south cove. We installed the shade and were delighted with how it turned out. It took us a few days to trust it enough to leave it up all night, but it handles the wind well. We now have our hanging chairs in the stern area and the lounge cushions up front under the shade. It’s getting mighty comfortable around here! The water is still brisk, but we were able to stay in long enough to slowly work at cleaning the hull and waterline. Oasis joined us after the weekend and we had a few days of Baja Rummy afternoons. A great way to end the day, even if the guys seem to be winning most of the time. We had planned to head to Isla Monserrate with Oasis and took down the shades the night before we left. Good thing….that night we got hit with gusty winds all night that kept me awake and would have given the shades a real test. Oasis called the next morning and had made the decision to head back to their mooring. The weather called for fairly high winds through the weekend, so we decided to head over to Juncalito. After about four days of relaxing, we made another trip north to Loreto to do our final provisioning before we leave for the States. We had about 5 stops to make so we left Juncalito at about 6:30 and were in Loreto by 8:30. We hit Pescadero first and returned the bags to NEOS and then went in to finish our chores. We had made plans to meet Oasis for lunch in the town square at noon so only got 2 of our chores done before lunch. When we got to the square, Jim and Jeanie were surrounded by policemen. Turns out that Jim had nicked a stone planter with his car and they were all trying to figure out what to do about it. They were still discussing it as we headed to Café Ole for lunch. During lunch, they came back and said they had decided to meet Jim at the square the next day with the guy who could fix it. Then they would know how much to charge Jim.

After lunch, Oasis offered to drive us around a bit. We hit Reygoza, Arcos and were able to buy our bus tickets at the bus station. They drove us back down to the malecon and we only had to walk 2 blocks to our dinghy. As soon as things were put away, we pulled up anchor and headed southeast to Marquer. This time there were no bees at all. Terry and Dawn on Manta called us and offered some cabrillo. Didn’t take us long to drop the dinghy and head over for fresh fish and a nice chat. Manta and Cheerios, the other boat in Marquer, left the next day and we had a couple of days in peace and quiet before Oasis joined us again. We spent the last week of June finishing up a few projects we wanted done before we leave. There were daily card games in the afternoon with Oasis, and one day we invited Joss over to join us for the afternoon chat. Turns out we had met Mike and Deedee in Las Hadas when we were there a year and a half ago. For the first time, we were able to entertain on the trampoline under the new shade where we enjoyed a light breeze. Great month…and now looking forward to heading home in July.