Lots of people who left Mexico for the summer are starting to migrate back to San Carlos and launch their boats again.  We’ve been catching up with some of the people we knew from Mazatlan and it’s been fun going to a grocery store and selecting items we want to eat rather than taking whatever’s not rotten.

We’re both really glad we stayed in Mexico this summer.  Especially after we hear tales of gas prices, customs inspections and all the hustle and bustle that people endured going back to the US.  We have tons of great memories and met a bunch of great people while they fought the rat-race.

Our expected haul-out date is Oct. 21.  We’re doing some routine maintenance and then back into the water.  Hopefully we can get all our work done quickly so we can take off for Mazatlan.  As things stand now, we are just waiting for some friends to arrive with our bottom paint for the boat then we can put the gears in motion.

We left B of LA bound for San Carlos 3 days ago.  Because there are several islands up in the north part of the Sea of Cortez we were able to do shorter legs to reach the other side.  We went from Puerto Don Juan (in B of LA) 27 miles to Salispuedes Island.  We were hopeful to get some rest before the 40 mile leg to Isla Tiberon, but the anchorage was too rough, so at 10pm we sucked up our self-pity and made a night passage to Tiberon, not our idea of resting.  We spent the following night in a rolly anchorage on Tiberon called Dog Bay, but we were too tired to care.  At noon the next day we did the 80 mile leg (overnight) to San Carlos where I’m writing this now.  Along the way we saw a pod of 6 Orcas and 3 Thrasher Sharks, pretty damn cool.

So, San Carlos is an expensive gringo retirement community (read nightmare).  On one side of the bay there are $3+ million dollar mansions built into the cliffs and mountains, and on the other are small wooden shacks where the Mexicans live.  It’s a little disturbing how much money some of these people have, a lot of decadence.

Anyway we’re here specifically to work.  We have to get the boat out of the water and get busy.  Our friends on Ocean Lady and Batwing have been helping us to get some work supplies down to us from the US (along with 6 months worth of our mail)!  We’re excited to be here, but I have a feeling we’ll be even more excited to leave.

It’s been 5 months since we’ve had direct access to fresh water (meaning we don’t have to fill containers and haul them out to the anchored boat).  There’s a fuel dock here where we can take the boat right up, park it and fill the tanks.  It’s also been about 6 months since we’ve been able to wash the boat with fresh water, not to mention how long it’s been since we could take a real carefree showers where we can use more than a quarter of a gallon of water!  Oh luxury!

PHEW!  Otis burned itself out and didn’t make it across Baja.  We spent several days nervously listening to the SSB weather predictions, stripping the boat down and checking and rechecking our anchor gear.   But we’d rather be ready for nothing than sitting on anchor getting pasted by a storm!

Another goodie is out there brewing.  Hopefully it won’t come our way.  We’ll be in town preparing for the crossing to San Carlos in the next week or so!

Otis is going to give us trouble one way or another.  It’s going to be here around Monday.  Hopefully it follows its predicted path and travels up the outside of the Baja before crossing over to us.  If it does this, it will loose power down to a Tropical Storm and we’ll expect to see torrential rains and 40-50 knot winds.  If we get lucky and it turns out to sea (doubtful) then it will be just another day in paradise.  Either way, we’ll be out of touch until later next week.  You can watch the action from the safety of your home:

http://www.nhc.noaa.com

Look for OTIS in the Eastern Pacific.

Well, Otis could be coming our way in the next few days.  It’s not expected to get much bigger than a category 1, and the current models show it going on the outside of Baja, then curving inland towards Bay of LA.  However if it follows this track, it will be killed by the land before reaching us.  The problem is the center of the storm is difficult to find due to the convection around it and it is moving slowly, both of those things make the models unpredictable.  Keep your fingers crossed that Otis turns out west and burns out.

The other strange thing is that a week ago almost half of the boats up here decided to head back south.  Hurricane season is just getting dangerous this time of year because they start to “recurve” and head towards Mexico instead of Hawaii.  We’re not sure why so many boats decided it was all over and left, but there are only about 14 boats left here, when there were 30.  Hopefully the season is winding down after Otis, but we’re still sitting tight.

Traveling down the outside of Isla Angel de la Guardia was a bit of a bust in terms of sailing, but the scenery made up for it. We had to motor down the entire outside stretch, often against some strong current of 3 to 4 knots. On the way up we sailed like crazy in 20 to 30 knots of wind, so I guess we had to pay the price on the return trip.

Anyway, it was great to come back to town and pick up some ice and cold cokes. Oh, and we found 3 Dr. Peppers in one of the lockers! Wow! You can�?¢â�??¬â�??¢t find Dr. P anywhere and we discovered them in La Paz and bought a bunch. So months ago I thought we�?¢â�??¬â�??¢d run dry. Our pleasures are simple out here, and I was delirious when Sherrell found three cans rolling around! Now there�?¢â�??¬â�??¢re on ice!

Well, the vet, Manuel, in Santa Rosalia did too good of a job with bringing Jezebel back from near death.  She’s acting like a kitten again and playing all the time.  We’ve been cutting her hair about every 3 to 4 weeks which keeps her cool and keeps the hair balls away.  She hasn’t been sick once since the surgery, which is a dramatic change for the better!

She looks quite different with a #2 clipper buzzcut.  In fact she doesn’t recognize her own tail.  And after 14 years of having it attached to her butt you’d think she’d recognize it.  But a buzzcut quickly changed that.  Now she thinks there’s some strange creature attached to her butt, and boy is it fast and sneaky!  She’ll chase it in circles trying to catch that bugger, only to have it disappear.  She’ll search the cushions, the blankets, and then look relieved that it is gone.  But then she’ll turn around to leave and BAM!  There’s the beast again and the chase starts all over.

It’s nice she’s found a toy that we don’t have to pickup and we don’t have to play with her.  Built in entertainment!  And oh, it’s damn funny for us too.

What happens when you anchor near an island and a beach where lots of birds roost? Guano happens! And Estanque (�?¢â�??¬�?�??ess-STAHN-kay�?¢â�??¬) stunk. What�?¢â�??¬â�??¢s worse is the little noseeum bugs who live off the birds, attacked us with a vengeance that is unbelievable. The rocks on the beach were its redeeming quality. They were tumbled round and shiny by the years of waves and the colors ran the full rainbow.

But the bugs, and the call of ice cold margaritas forced us out of the anchorage a day later. The hurricane �?¢â�??¬�?�??Max�?¢â�??¬ increased the humidity to about 80% and we felt like we were in a sauna, so after a week of so of warm drinks, we longed for the bar in town. Max is behaving himself and heading out to sea right now, but he brought a sudden change in our weather. We were just starting to cool off as September wound down when Max came along and screwed all that up. Hopefully Max continues his current path and the new one brewing off Acapulco goes west out to sea as well.

Ok, one better than Refugio �?¢â�??¬â�?��? Caleta Pulpito! With the water clarity about 40 feet, and billions of fish (more than Refugio!), Pulpito was a snorkelers�?¢â�??¬â�??¢ paradise! There were schools of trigger fish just following us around to see what we were doing; we saw an elusive and rare Golden Grouper, and shellfish (a rare site these days). In this remote place, we were able to glimpse what the Sea of Cortez used to be like 10 or 15 years ago. Everywhere we looked in the water were schools of large and small fish.