September, 2012

With both buddy boats out of the area, we spent the final month of waiting out the hurricane season pretty much alone. We left Marquer to make a provisioning run in Loreto. We got into the anchorage by 10am and hit 5 stores, got 2 bags of ice, and were back aboard NEOS by 1pm. We noticed that the dock boys are getting smarter....they wore roller blades so they could monitor both sides of the marina. The malecon is just about finished now as well. Progress. After lunch, we headed north to Coronados and had the anchorage to ourselves once the tourist boats left.

The wind was shifting to the north so we decided to head into Puerto Ballandra since we had not visited it yet this summer. We were joined by 2 other boats our second day and the noseeums were so bad I wasn't getting much sleep. We pulled anchor and went to Marquer. We anchored at the northeast end of the bay and were joined by another boat that anchored in the southeast corner, at least half a mile away. After almost 2 weeks in Marquer, we headed down to Candeleros. As we entered the bay, a large black cell hit us. Rog dropped the anchor in 20 to 25 knot winds and was done just as the rain hit. Another free boat wash. Ventured was the only other boat in the anchorage but both Trinity and Manta showed up for a couple of days of our 11 day stay there. Manta shared his catch of the day...chocolates. These are Mexican clams with a distinctive chocolate colored shell. Terry said this bay is full of them. He gave us a quick lesson in opening them and even gave us a couple of suggestions for preparing them. This prompted Rog to pull out the BBQ and the 16 clams made 2 lunches for us. I have never understood people raving about conch, clams and mussels in general. But the buttered garlic with Parmesan cheese topping was good!

Rog joined me on a trip into Loreto on the resort shuttle. He wanted to find a new inverter so we stopped at Ferra Mar and Sony, but we didn't find what he was looking for. We also went to 2 Telcel stores looking for some way to use our tablet with Banda Ancha but hit zero on that as well. But Rog did find a 12v charger that will charge our e-readers so we weren't totally unsuccessful. We hit the "seed and feed" shop, then the grocery store. We tried the Fruteria as well, but pretty slim pickings for fruit, and, sadly, the mango season is over. We got back to the shuttle stop with enough time to buy a couple of drinks before heading back to Candeleros. We used the resort facilities every few days, paying our dues. One afternoon, 4 tourists from Texas came by the boat on wakeboards and kayaks. They admired the boat and we invited them on board. Nice folks. The next day they waved at us from the bow of the catamaran that takes tourists out to the islands. Then, when we went into for Happy Hour on Sunday, we saw them again. As we were lounging by the pool, Chris came by with a bag of groceries they had brought and weren't able to use. She also asked us to join in on a prank they were doing on Andy. Seems that they brought a bunch of large cookies with them, each with a Photoshop picture of Andy's head on the body of a muscular hunk. So before we headed back to the boat, we stopped by their group and said we found this strange cookie over at our lounges and asked for their help to locate the owner since the guy looked vaguely familiar. A good laugh was had by all. Apparently poor Andy has had these cookies turning up over and over during their vacation. We restocked with ice and heading south the next day.

Typical of hurricane season here in Baja, we had a flurry of last minute storms. Miriam came up off the west coast of Baja and we didn't want to be in Candeleros when she headed north. We decided to go south into Agua Verde once it was clear that she wasn't going to be coming inside into the Sea. If she had done that, we would have headed up to Escondido and taken a mooring. Actually, other than dumping a bunch of rain on us, she sort of fizzled.

I was not sad to leave Candeleros and its night visitors. Every night, we were inundated with large brown moths that did everything they could to get inside. So every morning, we spent a good hour catching the ones that succeeded in getting inside, and cleaning up the mess they left outside. There was a regular flotilla of dead moths behind our boat as they seem to be dying on their own as well. Our Texan amigos reported that they were so prevalent at the resort that it was hard to eat outside. We had flies before the moths, but we found out how to manage them and they didn't leave such a mess. We found out that if we killed them in the morning, we didn't have many the rest of the day. At least neither moths or flies bite or sting.

As we got to Agua Verde, we found out that there was another storm heading straight up into the Sea. We could still make it up to Escondido, but, again, the storm fizzled. It hung out between Agua Verde and La Paz while in its death throes, so we waited until it completely died before venturing south. Norman again provided a good rain and I got rugs, screens, and boat really cleaned up. We hooked up the hose to the water tank and captured enough water in the tanks to delay having to use the water maker until the water cleared up a bit.