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| SAILING MEXICO |
| Loreto To Santa Rosalia |
| Now where were we??? Oh yeah, trying to keep up with journal entries for the web site! We have been way lazy about this lately. We will strive to improve our output in the future. In this installment we travel from Loreto to Santa Rosalia. Along this route we visited a number of lovely anchorages and took in the annual 4th of July party at Gary's Palapa in Bahia Concepcion. You can find corresponding pictures by clicking on the Photo Album button above. Remember, you can always look at our previous ramblings by clicking on the archived Journal Entries above and the corresponding archived Photo Albums on the Photo Album page. Before we describe the trip north from Loreto to Santa Rosalia, we must tell you of a small hiccup in the game plan. Shortly after our friend Birgit departed to return to Southern California, we discovered a leak in the diesel fuel tank aboard Southern Belle. This was a serious issue that had to be dealt with. Not only is it environmentally unsound, but that diesel is expensive! It became obvious that our best hope for making this repair was back in La Paz. So we headed South for 2 days to get into La Paz. It took us over three weeks to complete the repairs to both the fuel tank and the watermaker that we burned up enroute to La Paz. Quite a bit longer than we had hoped, but we left with a tight fuel tank and a fully functioning watermaker. Joshua further improved his trampolining and putt-putt skills (at the marinas trampoline/putt-putt course). From La Paz to Loreto we buddy boated with our friends Brad and his son Mason on La Solana (Wife Nancy and older son Mike were back in the States for a visit). Brad is great at slaying fish with his speargun, so we ate well every night. Ha also taught us a few techniques so we are getting quite a bit better ourselves. Mason and Mike, both accomplished surfers, helped teach Joshua how to skurf behind the dinghy. They even sold us one of their extra surf boards so that Joshua could continue skurfing/surfing after we parted ways. Back in Loreto we did a little provisioning, celebrated George's Birthday, and then started making our way north. We arrived in Bahia Concepcion on the 3rd of July and anchored in Burro Cove along with at least 20 other cruising sailboats and motorboats. Everyone had gathered here to celebrate the 4th of July in fine fashion at Gary's 13th Annual 4th of July Hot Dog Cook Out. Gary is this ultra-cool Expat who lives full time in his Palapa home right on the beach in El Burro. Every year he throws a big bash, cooks hot dogs for everyone, has music, and even a great fireworks show in the evening. When we arrived at El Burro it was soooooo hot (over 100 air temp and water temp at 93) that we decided we would leave immediately after the party the next day. We ended up having such a great time that we stayed in El Burro for over 5 days. We did spend alot of time in the water. We made a bunch of new friends, including Brad Artman who is an oil patch Geophysicist who lived in New Orleans. He is even familiar with a couple of our old profs at UNO, Terry Pavlis and Laura Serpa (not to say that you're old Laura and Terry). While in the area we visited the town of Mulege and took a tour of ancient Indian cave paintings that was both enlightening and fun. Our tour guide took us to a fruit farm where we were able to purchase fresh oranges, grapefruit, and mangoes for next to nothing. He also took us on a hike through the desert, identified the different cactuses, and told us the different medicinal uses for each plant. Did you know that the leaves from the creosote bush will cure your athletes feet? We also took a couple of days to drive back to Loreto and visit with our friends Tony & Jane Stuart and their new baby, Eden. They had rented a very nice house on the beach and had plenty of room for us to spend the night. We had a great time, and not just because they had central air conditioning! We departed Bahia Concepcion and continued north to Santa Rosalia. We stopped at Isla San Marcos and spent a couple of days anchored at the north end of the Island in Los Arcos cove. We did alot of kayaking and snorkeling here because there are many caves and rock outcrops to explore. After that we headed into Santa Rosalia and obtained a slip at the brand new Singlar Marina that just opened a few months earlier. It's always nice to get a fresh water rinse for the boat. In our next installment we will tell you all about Santa Rosalia. Until then, as always, we wish you all a fresh breeze and following seas! |
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