First Sail of the Season

Lets just start this post with condolences to all of our friends and family who are suffering under the first occurrences of winter up north. So sorry to be you!

With our de-hurricaning done, we took our boat out of the slip and headed to the islands for a short test sail. Woo hoo boat camping again!

Our plan was to head to Isla San Francisco Saturday morning for a couple nights, then to check out a couple perfect little bays on Isla Espirito Santo over the next couple of days. We left on Sunday as the Capitania closed the port Saturday to small boats because of weather. As we left La Paz Sunday morning we checked-out with the Capitania and told him our plans.

We had been to Isla SF last season. On arriving we noted that the water still looked bright turquoise near the beaches to deep blue as it got deeper. We anchored in about 20 feet and could see all the way down to the sandy bottom through the crystal clear water. We also met another couple who were dock neighbors in Nuevo Vallarta last season. It’s a really small community out here!

After a couple days we left this paradise and headed south to Espirito Santo to find our next bay. Last year we stayed in a couple bays on the neighbor island Isla Partida and wanted to anchor somewhere slightly different. We picked Bahia Cardinal. We sailed almost the entire distance to our next location. Again colorful and crystal-clear water. On arriving we only had one other boat in the big open anchorage. A couple other boats stopped in, but everyone else left by sunset. Were we just going to have this beautiful bay all to ourselves, or did they know something we did not?

Unfortunately we had some unexpected weather overnight. The bay was open to the west and both wind and waves made for a long night. Only saw a max of 17 knots of wind but even as the wind subsided the waves continued to make the anchorage uncomfortable. We survived.

After the rock and rolling night at Cardinal, we decided to head back to La Paz. We were aware of increasing winds Thursday and did not want to have to go into La Paz if they closed the port again. So we pulled anchor and sailed almost all the way back to the city while taking in the sites on the way.

We have cleaned up the boat and are taking care of a number of tasks before our first guest of this season joins us for a week.