We are now in Conception. It is getting hotter by the minute and almost time for us to head back south to avoid any hurricanes. the water temperature, here, was in the 90's. But, the worst problem is that Linda (Endeavour) was stung by a ray just as we arrived here. So, she can't even go in the water for a week or so. It' s too damn hot not to be able to swim.
This is called El Burro. It is a little palapa village inside Bahia Conception. The palapas are built right at the waters' edge. When it's high tide, the water laps the steps. Just a bit risky, I think.
We are pretty much always using our "dink" right now as Endeavours is falling apart. They'll have to repair it or buy a new one once we get back to La Paz. Shelling was interesting here. There were tons of murex shells on the beach; all had been harvested and left behind. They were stinky, so we hung them over the side of the boat for weeks to clean them.
Cactus just seem to grow anywhere.
Fortuitous happily at anchor. It is time to head south as we are all dying of the heat and getting concerned about hurricane season.
At Los Arcos (the Arches) on the end of San Marco Island, north of Loretto, there were all these great caves. Since our dinghy motor is so small, we had to take Fortuitous up to the end of the island and anchor there for the day. It is not a safe anchorage for an overnight stay. We went into some of the caves with the dinghy, and poked around looking for shells. We actually found conch shells here, and several other neat ones for our growing collections…Fortuitous is getting heavier and heavier. Kim strikes a pose!
Here there was a panga pulled in and the fishermen were having lunch. This is where we found conch shells and took a couple to clean up and save.
The bathing beauties just outside the cave.
Linda shelling in the dark.
This is all of us in Los Arcos. We are standing near the family car. Now, for those of you who aren’t cruisers, I’ll explain. The dinghy is our only means, save swimming, of actually getting off the boat. When you have spent as much time as we have aboard, this little boat (affectionately called the “dink” by cruisers) becomes very important to our lives. Kim and Linda have a much bigger “dink” but theirs is on the fritz…falling apart and in need of repair. So, we have been their taxi service for most of the trip up and down the Baja. They used to ferry us a lot, because they have a 15-horse engine and it takes no time to get to shore. We have a 4 horse (two of them dead, I think) so we can’t be in a hurry to go anywhere!
Here we found some more large cacti. They really are an unbelievable size!
We finally managed to get into San Juanico. It is such a beautiful place with a couple of excellent places to anchor. we had some of the best snorkelling here. However, I was attacked by a blue jellyfish or two. It took an hour for the pain to subside. All looks pleasant and serene here, but little did we know what we were in for.
This is San Juanico, the next morning. We are in the beginning of a ‘Chubasco’. Kim on ‘Endeavour’ took this shot. It doesn’t really do it justice, it was much worse than it looks! A ‘Chubasco’ is a thunder and lightning storm. They usually come across from mainland Mexico and usually last 45 minutes or so. At the beginning, it was just “an experience”. After 4 hours it was hell. We had to motor into the storm for over 3 hours because we were in very shallow water and had the beach directly behind us. Now, I know, those of you who have been reading carefully are saying “didn’t she say they learned a lesson about shallow anchorages?”…the whole bay is shallow, so we didn’t have much choice.
However, we did learn not to anchor so close together. This, and the fact that the ‘snubber’ (a rope tied to the anchor chain to help take the load off the anchor windlass [winch for pulling anchor up]) came loose caused us great concern. While motoring into the storm, we had to be conscious of how close we were to Endeavour. It was not a fun time! Our dinghy (complete with motor) flipped over, twice, and on the second flip all seats, gas can etc. floated away. After the storm, we luckily found everything (except my hand sewn gas can cover) washed up on the beach. Needless to say, we learned several lessons here, as well!
This is Fortuitous tied to the dock in Costa Baja Marina, La Paz, waiting out hurricane season. We are completely covered trying to keep out that killer sun. It is brutal, at 40 degrees in the shade here, and is not conducive to doing much of anything. The last thing you feel like is lying around on a beach cot out in the sun. That’s how you can tell the difference between tourists and cruisers…tourists hang out and try to get a tan, cruisers hide in the shade try to avoid skin cancer. We bought a large fan and are using that in the cockpit as well as down below where we don’t have our little fans. We run fans all night since the temperature drops to only mid 30’s. There is a little breeze, thank God!! There is a pool here, so it could be worse. We are, at present, doing a multitude of boat chores that you can’t do when you’re at anchor. As well, we are putting in time because this is the worst period of the hurricane season. The season doesn’t end until into November, so we’ll be here awhile. We hope to head out to some of the islands, and return here, rather than stay here for all that time. It gets boring… I know, sob, sob, bring out the hankies!!!
