Festive Season in the Islands

View from the top of Isla San Francisco

Each morning we listen to the weather on the Ham Radio nets. We hear about low pressure hitting the BC coast back home, bringing cold and wet weather, while we have enough warmth here for snorkeling and hiking in shorts.
On Christmas Eve we anchored at Isla San Francisco and shared a sunset drink on the beach along with the crews of nine other boats also anchored in the bay. Then on the day “Sarah Jean II” hosted us for a holiday feast that couldn’t be beat: lobster, prawns (steak for Stephen) and lots of fun stories around the table.
Whether in a warm or cold climate, we hope everyone had a joyous, festive season this year!

Christmas Cruising Crowd Isla San Francisco

Full Lunar Winter Solstice Eclipse



View at 28 minutes after midnight

We spent most of the night of the solstice on the beach at Amortajada, on Isla San Jose. With hot rum in hand we were able to witness the moon gather a shadow and the stars multiply as the night grew darker. We went ashore to try and take photos of the event and we were glad that we did despite small biting insects! We had a short nap while the moon was completely dark and once we were satisfied that it was coming back, we made our way back to Narama. We watched the final stages of uncovering thru the hatch above our heads while we lay snuggled in our bunk onboard. The last time we watched a lunar eclipse was seven years ago – also from an island in Baja. Perhaps it’s prophetic that the celestial bodies have aligned again while we are here?



Eclipse Seen from Amortajada

South to Puerto Escondido

Narama flies her Spinnaker!

“I guess we should take the pole down before we catch a fish.” We had been running down wind with our jib poled out on our first day out of Santa Rosalia. The pole had barely touched the deck as we were about to round up behind Punto Chivato when we looked behind us and had a nice dinner-sized Yellowtail on the line. Oh its nice to be at sea again! We’ve had a lovely week or so making our way south in the Sea of Cortez. We hope that everyone has a wonderful Solstice and Christmas and a Happy New Year!

From the logbook:
Dec 10: “Sailed off the anchor with the mainsail. Then rigged and set the spinnaker for the first time in who knows how long. A light 10 knot NE breeze made for an easy sail south to Punto Mangles.”
From the Sketchbook:

Pair of Red-billed Tropicbirds.  We heard them calling before we saw them fly over-head.  NE San Marcos Island.

Santa Rosalia



Place names from our time in the Northern Sea of Cortez









Great Egret on the dock

On arrival in Santa Rosalia we were greeted at the marina by the statement that “the asylum is run by the inmates”. If they are crazy we didn’t see it, maybe we fit in there too, but what a great bunch of people. We are all eccentric in our own ways. Our two night planned stay turned into two weeks when we found out it was not too complicated or expensive to get your chain galvanized up in Mexicali. That’s a days bus ride away and I pondered where else you could send a wooden crate of chain weighing 105 kg on a bus! The transport cost was over twice the galvanizing, but we opted for speed (oh right we forgot we were in Mexico). We did get it back and a nice job was done. Our timing was impeccable as we arrived very salty the day water returned to the town after a 3 day drought, we enjoyed a wonderful thanksgiving meal at one of the “inmates” houses and sat out a few day 40+kn Northerly at anchor in the protection of the harbour without mishap. The bakery in town served as a pleasant distraction to the usual tortillas and we found more stove fuel for which we had run out and had reverted to the camping stove in the cockpit. Projects like covers for the kayak and jerry cans, sail maintenance, water pump bearing changes, varnishing and research for our puddle jump filled the rest of the two weeks rapidly. In town the old mining relics, museum, the church designed by Eiffel and brought out from Europe and of course the hot dog stand(maxed out at 3 with all the toppings) filled the local culture aspect of our visit. We were glad to spend the time there get to know everyone even a little bit, but also nice to be back on the road sailing out into the boisterous NWesterlies again.

Marina and Mining Relics in Santa Rosalia