Thursday 2 December 2004

December 2004, Cabo San Lucas

On our way down from Bahia Santa Maria to Cabo, we saw this wonderful rainbow!
The coastline as we are approaching Cabo San Lucas. It is beginning to warm up, but it is still cold out on the water.
This is the approach to Cabo. Very rocky and barren, but you can see greenery in the background. We had no idea, nor were prepared for what would lie around the corner.
Here, you can see a cruiseship in the gap. It almost appears to be on land.
Here we are just coming around the corner. Yet another cruiseship. We felt that we had finally arrived...palm trees, time share salespeople, hawkers on the beach, cruise ships, and finally warm water. We anchored and jumped off the boat for a swim. And for my kid's information, yes, I really did jump off the boat and get my hair wet! This was the first time I was warm enough to swim, 25 degrees.

Celebrating our arrival in Cabo. As you can see, the socializing has not lessened. Here we are on the beach in Cabo with Kim and Linda (Endeavour) and Julie and Mike from Slacker..This was another big milestone for us.
While in Cabo, Endeavour was swarmed. Although difficult to see here, the end of the boom is covered with a huge ball of bees. Ralph happened to "bee" aboard Endeavour, at the time, and helped them get rid of all the bees by spraying them with sea water. Even after cleaning up, for several weeks Kim and Linda found bee bodies in various nooks a crannies. Kim and Linda left for Puerto Vallarta shortly after this. We were heading to Mazatlan...at least we thought we were!
Another Islander Freeport that we found in the marina in Cabo. We had to spend time waiting for our replacement batteries to arrive from San Diego. The ones purchased there were faulty and we could not go on without new ones.
This was the busiest harbour, tourist-wise, that we have been in so far. There was at least one cruiseship per day, with up to three on some days. The sea-doos and pangas buzzed around us and we ended up feeling like we were in the middle of a huge washing machine! It was not our favourite spot, but we welcomed the warmth of sun and water, something we had not experienced until here.

This is looking directly at the beach from Fortuitous.
This would be yet another bird trying to take up residence on our boat. I don't know what it is about Fortuitous and birds, but this poor fellow (a very large pelican) decided he'd make a stop on our solar panel. I guess he didn't count on how slippery it would be and ended up skidding right off and down between the panel, lifelines, and aft cabin top. He struggled but could not free himself, so Ralph helped him free his wing...but not before I looked him up in our bird book to discover whether he was good eating! Sadly, no, but we impoverished cruisers can't be too choosey, you know!

Here we are leaving to go to Puerto Vallarta...I know, I know, I said we were headed to Mazatlan. Well, after installing our new batteries, we did head out for Maz. Unfortunately, it was not to be. We got beat up for 4 or 5 hours and made no progress. We turned around and went back to Cabo. We regrouped and headed out for PV the next day...a better direction wind-wise, so a more comfortable trip.
This will be our next boat!
The actual cape (cabo). You often see photos of boats near that arch, in travel brochures. The city is off to the right.
Good bye Cabo! Mainland, here we come!
On the first morning, after our overnight passage, we had several of these little squid on our deck...quite a mess!
Looks like a storm a-brewing, but nothing materialized.

We have been visited many times by dolphins during our time at sea. These fellows visited us on our way to the Mexican mainland.








Funny, you can watch them until they leave you (20 minutes or sometimes more) and never tire of their beauty and effortless diving and swimming. What a treat to see them in the wild!


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