Tuesday, December 07, 2004

great hike and preparing to head south

We had an excellent hike today across the point to the ocean beach. It began with a mile long dinghy ride up into the mangroves. We beached the dink at a little fishing camp and treked through the front and back yards of all the little shacks until we got to the other side of the camp and followed a sand road a mile or so to the beach. We found the battered remains of a a shipwreck, lots of interesting shells, some whale bones, including a whole skull (about 8-10ft long), and a bunch of turtle shells. Some of the turtle shells still had remains of the turtle still inside (rather mumified from the desert air). We looped back through the sand dunes and had a great time sliding down the steep sides. There were piles of shells behind the dunes that must have been deposited by hundreds of years of storms... up to a mile or so inland! We hauled back a load of interesting shells and the kids are having fun cleaning and sorting them. They're real troopers - the hike was 6 miles long and they probably put in an extra half mile running up and down the dunes! We were all pretty tired as we tromped back through the camp and piled into our dinghy. Fortunately the surf wasn't too bad going back out and we stayed dry (and didn't break any of the shells... like we did yesterday). We're planning to head south tomorrow, leaving just after noon with hopes to get to Los Frailles in the daylight 46-48 hours away. We may nip into the anchorage at Cabo San Lucas if the timing or weather isn't cooperating for a daylight arrival. Nice winds for the trip down to the end of Baja are forcasted for the next couple days, and it'll go light by the weekend. Icarian left today, and Loon will leave with us tomorrow. It's a tough balance - trying to pick enough wind to make a fast passage without getting beat up. I'd rather have a bit too much wind than not quite enough, in which case you slop around in the swell left over from some wind somewhere else, and there isn't enough wind to keep the sails full. We've broken more things rolling around in not enough wind than when it's blowing like stink.

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