The Sea of Cortez

Hi all! We are in Puerto Escondido - first place we have had internet since La Paz! I have managed to get a few pictures up but most of this is words - I'll send more when I can. After leaving La Paz, we literally sailed into our friends on Theopolis. They have a beautiful 40 ft. junk-rigged steel boat. We pulled into El Merito Cove for the night and had dinner together. Josh (13) has grown up quite a bit this year and it was good to catch up with Ron and Sherry. After that, we moved on to Partida Cove, an anchorage where Isla Espiritu Santu is seperated from Isla Partida by a narrow channel (at high tide you can dinghy through it!). We beach-combed and snorkeled. Our next stop was 4 nm north at Los Isoletes (shown above). This is a sea lion rookery, covered with hundreds of bulls, females and pups. We swam with the sea lions! Truly incredible - the real Sea World. The bulls demand respect but the pups love to play. Stephan and I swam through this arch in the rock, finding large pargo, groupers and other wonderful sea life. Hopefully, my underwater pictures will turn out and I'll be able to share more of this day.

We moved on to Isla San Fransisco and found our friends on Sugata. Sequoia (11) and Finn picked up where they left off last year. We set up our halyard swing and we all enjoyed acting like Tarzan and Jane for the afternoon. Todd, Susan and Sequoia also shared Finn's very belated, but very delicious, birthday cake (chocolate with fresh strawberries). Joe and Stephan took several fellow boaters out fishing and returned with the above catch. Quite a haul - plenty of fish to share between three boats. My big boys are truly the "experts" so we eat well!

We moved onto Isla San Jose, one of our favorite spots from last year. It has the largest mangrove lagoon in the Sea of Cortez. We dinghied through the river to the lagoon, went clamming, combed the beaches and soaked up the sun. Steph has started collecting bones and skulls to paint, very creative!

Our longest stop was in Agua Verde, where we met many friends. Here is Finn with his twin (not in looks but in likes), Nile, from Totem. Jamie and Behan also have two darling girls who I love to play with. We also met their friends on Eloni, Ethan, Nancy and 4 year old Zeda. Finn's blow-up killer whale was a big hit with the girls. We had many beach parties and the boys spent the majority of their time together. We also found our long lost friend, Mike, in Agua Verde. Two years ago, he lost his boat on a reef. He has bought a 40 ft. wood schooner, named Albatross, has acquired a piece of land in San Juanico and is expecting his wife, Carolyn, to arrive soon with their new 37 ft. RV. He looks well and happy. Stephan worked for 3 days with Mike varnishing his boat and we enjoyed several meals with Mike.

One of the best parts about Agua Verde is the snorkeling. I was in the water every day, combining swimming for exercise and observing the amazing sea life. The rock spit shown here is wonderful, with tide pools for the little ones and snorkeling for the rest. The island shown in the distance (right, middle) is Solitaria; the greatest snorkeling spot two years running. We saw shimmering parrot fish, moray eels, octupuses, colorful starfishes, schools of King Angelfishes, and Giant Hawkfish, to name a few. We spent several hours here, enjoying the bounty of nature. Someday soon, I hope to get a quality digital underwater camera to be able to share the most beautiful part of the Sea of Cortez, what's under the water. Tomorrow we head north, continuing our island hopping until Mulege, where we cross the Sea to Guaymas. From there, we put the boat away for another year and return to the States.