The first thing that I noticed (going South—because it was certainly NOT getting any warmer) was the change in phosphorescence. Particularly in the head water. Huge honking many-legged beasties all a-glowing green and washing down, down to the holding tank.. And I sort of felt bad but was a little too fascinated to feel too bad. Not having cable while growing up does this to a person I suppose. Your typical American might be all “Oh, well, I saw these giant squid once on the Discovery Channel that could take apart a Timex at 1000 feet and they glowed rainbow colors, not just green.” Well, I suppose they might be impressed if one of those multi-colored things turned up in their toilet.

We thought we might anchor off Isla San Martin but annoying windy weather and the cold, cold, cold encouraged us to continue on to Bahia San Quentin. Notable highlights of the trip included the intrepid spotting and expert recovery of a fantastic orange life ring apparently blown overboard (like, there was no decaying body attached, thankfully) from the vessel “Arc of the Seas” out of Nassau. The thing was covered in wicked-looking sea beasties (one of which, named “The Kelp Monster,” Joshua nearly let loose within the cockpit—think “Alien”—good grief) and best of all, had been altered by some clever bored honeymooner to read “N” ARC of the SEAS. The Narc now rests in our aft tramp pocket.

Seasickness was combated with some annoying acupressure bracelets, which work not by magic, as the packaging might have you believe, but simply by cutting off blood and nerve supply to the brain the hard way—via the wrist. Bleargh. Seasickness index = “Sigh.”

Arrival at San Quentin had us anchored directly in the panga route up the estuary and the night was rather bumpy with the wind waves blowing off the beach. The moment we dropped anchor, we had the fishing pole out in an attempt to catch some dinner (it was the day after thanksgiving, I believe, but we had not had the proper “Thanksgiving” so this was it for us). Just when we were resigned to another evening of tunafish sandwiches, some gringo fishermen charged up with their aluminum skiff decked out with about 20 different poles of varying size and chucked a RED SNAPPER onto our trampoline! HOT DAMN!!! They refused trade items (hey we carry Playboy!) and wished us a nice eve before charging off homeward. (Thank you expert fisherman!)

Despite harsh winds the following morning, we put our dinghy together and rowed the 10 thousand miles upwind to shore to walk on solid land for a bit. The beach was lovely and deserted and had lots of neat shells and dead seals in various stages of decay. We found a few seal teeth and various other random shell and plant matter that could not be lived without and, thus laden, headed back to the boat for an afternoon departure. The wind had picked up impressively and was blowing 20+ knots. We thought we’d head towards Cedros but after about ten swift minutes, decided we’d head for the next sheltered area to anchor: Punta Baja.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 25th, 2005 at 5:39 pm and is filed under doings, Mexico, nature, TimeMachine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.