A Baja adventure

Jaunico was great.

The water had been murky lately, due to a plankton bloom but in Jaunico it was perfect visibility.

I paddled out across the reef we had almost run into and on the glassy, boiling-hot morning, a cold sweat broke out over my body as I looked at those rocks lurking just below the surface.

It is an impossibility of physics that we survived it.  I marveled again, at what a good job Jon had done getting us out of there.

I circumnavigated a large pinnacle rock rising thirty feet out of the water and counted five Osprey nests. I had spent the early morning listening to the hungry chicks as I sipped my  coffee on the foredeck and watched the harried Osprey parents catching fish after fish and flying back to the nests. There would be a few moments of silence as the fuzzy youngsters gulped down the morsels and then their shrieking would start again. I had to laugh. The moment I put our breakfast dishes away, Kai invariably asks for a "tide-over"-our word for a snack before the next meal. I cannot believe how fast we have gone through our stores. It's only begun to dawn on me ,what the kids are going to require in terms of caloric fulfillment as they approach puberty. We too, will have to become very good fisherman to keep up with them.

I swear to God, those Ospery parents shot me a knowing look as they flew past me, in search of "tide-overs" for their own bottomless pits back at the nest.

I struck out across the wide bay and explored. 

Jaunico is a magical place. The reefs and shelves are surrounded by soft sea-grass and the water was so clear it was like paddling in an aquarium. I could see everything below me. Out of the corner of my eye something so large swam out of the grass, that I thought at first it must be a shark. It was nearly four feet long. As my brain computed more information -brown and deep bodied,  a fan-like tail, fat lips, a  downturned mouth- I realized I was looking at the biggest grouper I have ever seen. I tried to follow it but it shot away before i could get any closer. I knew the second I told the kids about it they would be over here in the dingy with every lure in our tackle box. A moment later, a small green and quite irritated-looking turtle popped up beside me. He was a new species to me, not the usual Pacific Green's that I have been loving so much here in the Sea. This guy was much more reptilian seeming. His head was small and pointy and his shell was covered in very large white crusty things-barnacles maybe, or some kind of calcite. He regarded me with cold, glittery eyes. I actually got the feeling he would bite me, given half the chance. He was not at all like my big, dopey , doe-eyed Greens. I decided to snub him and paddled away. He craned his sinewy neck  around and shot me a surprisingly nasty look over his shell as he continued munching his mouthful of sea grass.

On my way around another rocky outcrop, I saw schools and schools of fish and overhangs that promised underwater caves and the excitement was just too much, so I paddled back to the boat and woke everyone up. 

"Let's go snorkeling...Right now!" i said.

Everyone was dead tired but no one wants to miss out when there's turtles(grumpy or not) and giant groupers and caves, and within ten minutes we were squeezed in our gear and piled in the dingy.

On the way out to the rock another boat hailed us.

Jon and I looked at each other, wondering if anyone in the anchorage was going to ask us what in the hell we thought we were doing yesterday- but no one did.

It turned out to just be a nice couple from New Mexico complimenting us on the family scuba adventure.

"How great!" they said. "The whole family diving together!"

Not so many Grannies squeeze into a wetsuit at eight in the morning in the sea of Cortez in search of child-size Groupers.

Cynthia is a born water baby but Sara was raised on lakes and the whole Ocean experience has been a new frontier for her. Plied by eager grandchildren (who by now are half-sea creatures themselves) and the requisite  pre-dive, stiff Ceaser cocktail, she has become exceptionally brave in her escapades with us. I have noticed, that she tends to stick rather close to Jon when encountering large stingrays but so does everyone else. 

We had an epic dive that day and everyone saw lots of cool stuff. There were fish of all sizes and the kids pointed out everything they have learned about to Sara and Cynthia. Jon and I were proud, as we always are, watching them wiggle and twist in between the cuts on the reef, diving down 15 or twenty feet to point out a camouflaged stone fish or a green moray eel slinking by. Back on the boat, the afternoon wind had swung around to the South and the anchorage was getting rolly and rough. We bounced around  for a few hours and then decided it wasn't going to quit so it was time to haul up the hook and search out  a more protected spot for these conditions. 

Jon and I were on the ball, this time, as we entered Ramada cove with the utmost professionalism.

There wasn't room for many boats in there, so had the place to ourselves. We could see around the rocky point that the Sea had kicked up into a real blow now but we were anchored in calm waters and the wind was substantially less-just enough to cool us all down.We fell into the usual windy weather activities of reading and lounging and chatting. Jon was rummaging around in the engine room and came out with a particular "look" on his face. He was chewing his lip and thinking something.

"what is it?" I asked. 

He glanced at our guests and just shook his head. 
I decided to let it drop-and we had a lovely big dinner and everyone went to bed early.

Our plan was to set out for Isla Coronados the next day. It's  another extinct Volcano and reputedly great fishing. Kai and Jon were desperate to catch something for our guests as we had been having such good luck but that wasn't so much the case as of late. We hoped this would turn for us in Coronado. The Dorado were reputed to be beginning their run and Kai could talk of little else-much to everyone's dismay-and spent hours expounding on theories of lures and sizes and live baits vs....God knows what else, I can't keep track of it all.

Jon and Sara and Kai had a hike to the Cruiser's shrine and Cynthia and Hunter went to explore the beaches and a seek out perfectly preserved dead sea turtle I had found on my morning paddle.  The "mortified turtle"... as Hunter called it. Which was  funny, because the raging Sun had certainly "petrified" him but he had died with a look on his face that seemed as if he actually might just of expired of unimaginable, Turtle-embarrassment.  They seem to be creatures possessed of a humble dignity...Not at all like the cheeky dolphins who race around and fornicating all the time. 

Kai told me recently that Porpoise are the only creatures besides humans who have sex for fun. I'm sure he's right about his facts, although I wonder how the scientists can be so sure. It seems awfully presumptuous to assume you know what a wallaby or a camel is thinking about when he's at it.

It was noon and still blowing moderately in the bay when we weighed anchor. We nosed out into the channel and it was a whole different story out here. It was 20 knots on the nose and the Sea had gotten herself pretty worked up overnight and we were heading into the wind with a six foot swell on our nose. None of this was any big deal for Pura Vida and her saltiest of crews but we had company and Jon had expressed to me in the privacy of our cabin that the heat exchanger was vexing him. We decided that guests from LA in for a week did not need to slog through rough seas for three hours and we opted to run back to the protection of the "Ramada Inn" (as we now called it) and wait out the night. Leaving at daybreak the next morning would certainly ensure less wind and hopefully the seas would settle too.

We anchored again, made dinner, listened to  music and watched an amazing sunset, then everyone went to bed. 

Sara and Hunter decided to sleep on deck as the moon was nearly full. It is TRULY bright down here when the moon is at the apex, so Sara was awake most of the night. Hunter gave up at some point and crawled in our bunk and slept like a small sweating hair-shirt between us.

Jon and I rose early, looked out at the channel beyond the shelter of the cove and all looked calm and fair. While Jon ran the usual engine checks, I crept around on deck stowing lines and getting ready to sail. Sara seemed to have finally managed to fall asleep and I worked quietly around her in the cockpit. Jon came up with a worried look on his face. We whispered together and he told me his concerns about our crumbling heat exchanger. It is old and a serious concern as it's a most vital part of any engine and we have had trouble with it before. Jon showed me a small rusty chunk of metal about the size of a dime that had come away from it. We continued discussion it in hushed voices so as not to alarm our guests.

Sara  opened one eye and looked at us.

"what's wrong?" she said.

"Nothing." I lied. "Why?" 

 "You guys are whispering over there..."
Sara sat up and yawned and stretched. She grinned at Jon.
"And then you threw a chunk of something overboard. Was that a piece of the engine?".

Jon laughed. Mother's are hard to fool.

We gambled Perkie would hold together long enough for us to finish our planned itinerary and then we could make our way back to Esondido where we could hole up on a mooring ball and pull the  blasted heat exchanger-thing apart.

The weather had settled and the passage was as we had hoped.

The seas were calm and the wind was fair and we managed a comfortable cruise to our new destination.

We spent a lovely day and night in Coranado and Sara and Cynthia became masters of the paddle board in the calm clear waters. 

There was finally  successful fishing and dinner was caught and a feast was made and we celebrated an early birthday for the lovely Cynthia.

Complete with cupcakes by Hunter.

The next day we set out for Candelros, a stop we had made before. We were out of supplies by now-and more drastically, tequila-and it was agreed that an afternoon and evening at the pool bar would be a fitting way to end the Mexican cruise. When we arrived we were thrilled to find the place packed with kid-baots and Hunter and Kai made lots of new friends and it happened to be Karoke night the next night and Hunter made a plan to preform and spent the whole next day rehearsing her Adele reportie.

We finally got an internet connection and received an urgent email from my mother back home on Bowen...

There was an offer on our house.

Heading North

Buddies

Gramma love

fishin' girl

Havin' a ball!

Thor cross-dressing again...

Cupcake queen

Cruiser's shrine

Goggle girls

go go grandma!

Vacation smiles

Our friends

Happy

The spires of Jaunico

Ta Da!!

Baja bang master 2000

fun times

beauty

Boy

a star is born

The mortified turtle

What a girl!

The ladies

Beautiful girls!