Whales, a turtle and a Falcon

locals

Ten minutes later we saw the blows, right there in the shadow of the Princess Cruise Ships. Like all the other locals in Cabo, the whales were muy tranquilo and seemed tolerant of the gawking tourists ( ourselves included ).  This is a mother and calf. There were also two larger males further out who seemed to actually be showing off for the whale watching boats that zoomed around them every time they surfaced. We keep our distance on Pura Vida, this being our house and all but we have been lucky enough to see whales pretty much every day of our trip. We are getting good at spotting blows or seeing other telltale "footprints" left by these spectacular animals. Grey whales leave large "nets" of tiny bubbles on the surface, a moving whale leaves a large smooth patch of water where it has surfaced and most interestingly, you can almost always "feel" them before you see them. There is a distinct presence, like the feeling you get when you realize you are being watched and suddenly you think..."whales" and then you look around...and you'll see the blow. It's usually much too far away for them to actually be watching you but this has happened so many times now, I'm convinced there is something to it.
The waters that we are bound for are one of the world's great wildlife arenas and home to vast arrays of  birds, dolphins, whale sharks, manta rays and more species of whales than anywhere else in the world.
We watch these Humpbacks for about and hour, then, for the first time in five weeks, we shape our course to the North...The Sea of Cortez.

The sail to our next spot is easy. The anchorage we are bound for, Los Frailles , is about six hours from here but we opt to stop on the way, mostly because we forgot to fill one of our propane tanks in Cabo. We also have the wind on our nose, so the sail will take us too long to arrive at our anchorage in the daylight-what with all the fantastic whale watching detours this morning, so we opt to duck into a new marina about halfway up the coast to the anchorage. I sail and sunbathe and Hunter finds an old issue of Rolling Stone in my bookshelf that has a treasure trove of Lady Gaga photos, so she spends the afternoon cutting out pictures and turning her V-berth into a shrine to the mommy of all monsters. Jon spends the day kneeling at the alter ( rear end sticking out of the engine room door) and Kai reads in our room. I look up and spot what appears to be a gigantic barrel floating in the water. Then the barrel sticks out a massive head and opens two dreamy eyes. "Turtle" I yell. "Turtle! Turtle! Turtle!"  the poor old fellow took one look at me and  immediately dove below the waves. By the time everyone got on deck, he was long gone.
"Oh, my god, you missed it, he was as big as Kai" I say.
"You scared him with all that hollering" said Jon. "next time, just throttle back and put it in neutral, we'll know something is up and come see."
Okay, fine. I'll do that. I'm sorry no one else got to see him- he was huge and green and totally AWESOME.
Just then, some Risso's dolphins cross our bow. Hunter and I hang over the rail and watch them in the aquamarine water. They are the size of pilot whales but their heads are pure white-scars from battles with the vicious Humbolt squid that comprise their main food source.
An hour later we pull into the man--made breakwater of Puerto Los Cabos.
The marina is still under construction but very expensive. There are tons of fancy boats in here, just sitting, I guess, as no one seems to be around. We opt for one of the docks that does't have power yet as it's half price and we don't plan on being here long. The dock manager gives us our slip number and we motor past mega yachts and never used fishing charter boats and find our spot. As we pull into our slip, we see a really great old ketch next to us. A Perrigrin Falcon sits on top of it's mizzen mast. Jon docks us and I jump off the boat with the spring line. A super-tan, super-agile, 60 year-old dude in jeans and a t-shirt appears on the deck of the cool boat.  He watches us tie up. "Hey, you guys." he says, "welcome".
We chat as we secure our dock lines. We tell him we just sailed from Marina Del (feeling pretty impressed with ourselves) and he smiles and tells us "that's great".  We ask where he's from. He just flicks a tan thumb at his boat and smiles. We smile back and nod knowingly. " So, you untied" he says. "good for you guys".
"Yup" I say.  "Us and two little ones, they're around here somewhere..." I can hear Kai and Hunter below, clobbering each other with an empty water jug.
" kids?" says the dude and his face lights up. " how old?"
"Seven and ten"
 The dude grins at us. Once again, we are IN.
" I got my boat-kid here, too." he says.
At that moment the tannest, tallest, most long-haired, most gorgeous twenty year old boy pokes his head through the hatch. "
The old dude grins at us. "mine's a little bigger, now" he says.
And that's how we met Mike and Karen and their son, Falcon. And yes, the real falcon perched on their mast was just a coincidence, although somehow indicative of their coolness. These people had been cruising the world for THIRTY years. They are on their THRID circumnavigation. Falcon was born and raised on their boats. He didn't get off until he was 18. He was now 23 and has been traveling the states for a few years and had just rejoined his parents, five days ago, to sail with them to the Marquesas...they were leaving tomorrow. !!!!!!
Let me try to express what this was like for us. It's like, being a dinner theater actor in Demoines and deciding you are gonna go for the dream and with no experience and 15 bucks in your pocket, you hop a bus to Hollywood and the first person you meet when you land on Sunset boulevard, is MERYL STREEP.
These guys had sailed around the WHOLE WORLD twice already!!! They were making their way around again. They had been doing this for thirty years, encountered pirates in the Adman sea, had spears thrown at their hull in New Guniea, lived on desert islands for six months at a time, been rammed by whales, been sunk by boats, fended off tiger sharks, sailed every ocean and raised a CHILD, who now was clearly an incredible young man... I mean, COME ON!
We are docked right next to the coolest, most inspiring people we could possibly meet at this stage. They make their living writing books and fixing things and Karen sews sails and makes things and they couldn't have been nicer to us newbies. We sat on our decks, moored side by side and listened to their stories and tips. Mike and Karen have spent the last TWO YEARS in the Sea of Cortez.
"Don't rush it" they told us. "Go further up", "The wild life is incredible...', "Whale sharks under the boat", "watch out for the sweat bees...you gotta kill the scout..." and so on.
We listen with rapt attention, while Falcon taught Kai and Hunter fishing tips.
We bought a couple of Mikes' books. One on the raising of a Falcon-about his childhood at sea and another one about Karen's awesome recipes. Everything from the worlds best banana bread to Jellyfish salad and shark fin soup. They catch everything, they make everything, they fix everything...Oh, my goodness.
We crawled into our bunk that night and lay in the dark speechless.
 "Wow" Jon flipped on his light and reached for the book about Falcon.
" I have to read this, RIGHT NOW." he said. " I am totally star-struck by those people".
"No kidding" I reached for Karen's recipes.
And so, here we were, a couple of newbies,  next door to these VETS, who were about to jump the "big puddle" the very next morning...
Who do you think got more sleep that night?
I know it wasn't us. We read those whole books in one go.

Karen, Mike, Falcon and the kids. They make a nice family, don't they?

Bon Voyage to Beau Soleil... we hope we meet again.