Yesterday morning we visited the Marina San Carlos Pemex (fuel) dock to top off our diesel and water and rinse off some of the dirt we accumulated in the Bahia San Carlos anchorage. Almost every afternoon for the three weeks we were there the wind blew out of the NW at 20-25 knots and didn't die off until after 8 PM. The boat (including the rigging) was coated with a layer of dirt, and we'll have to get the rest of it off in Mazatlan. For the most part the weather in San Carlos was very comfortable, with temperatures in the 80's during the day and down to the low 70's at night. But as much as I usually prefer low humidity, it's been so dry (down to 20% even) that no amount of lotion has kept my skin from drying out!
That should soon change as we head south to Mazatlan where it's been warmer and more humid. Since we already had the anchor up after getting fuel we decided to motor a few miles south of Bahia San Carlos here to Bahia Catalina for a change of scene. Just a couple of miles outside of Guaymas harbor, Catalina is a charming anchorage with one sand and two rock beaches, an islet, a big cave/blow hole, lots of birds, and water black with bait fish. Unfortunately, being so close to Guaymas and its associated fishing industry, the beaches are littered with plastic garbage, there's a large abandoned fish camp (waterfront property or just an eyesore?), and fishing pangas come in and set nets all night long. It's kind of entertaining to see all the rusty shrimpers and seiners coming and going past the entrance to the bay, but also a little nerve racking to see so much commercial traffic after so much time spent with only other recreational boats to think about. This morning I even saw a huge tanker headed out to sea, and we saw the car ferry coming in. We'll have to be extra careful when we leave at o-dark-thirty tomorrow morning.
We would have left this morning except that John woke up yesterday feeling punk, and later we discovered he was running a low fever. So he rested yesterday afternoon and went to bed early, and aspirin and Tylenol helped bring his fever back down to normal today. We'll leave tomorrow instead, and plan to arrive in Mazatlan sometime on Monday (early if we motor, by dark if we sail some).
Ziggy finally went for his first swim yesterday. At 5:30 PM, 15 minutes before John was scheduled to run the evening marine radio net, John was busy stowing fuel cans on the stern of the boat. Ziggy is daddy's little boy and loves to "help" John, so he was right there in the thick of it. Unfortunately the new configuration caused him to misstep, and John watched him fall head first into the 69 degree water. He immediately started swimming up the port side of the boat which was too bad because, a) the kitty rescue rope is off the starboard stern, and b) the swim ladder (usually hung off the port mid-ships) had been stowed for the passage, and hadn't been redeployed (who was planning on going swimming in that cold water?). Although we had previously discussed exactly what we should do in the event of a cat overboard, pandemonium reigned, and Ziggy swam all the way to the bow of the boat before John was there with the fishing net to scoop him out. He'd had to swim against some thankfully small wind chop, and his strangled meows sounded like he was swallowing water. I was right there to wrap him in a dry towel and we even had warm water ready for our evening showers that we used to rinse off the salt water. He didn't struggle too much with that, so he either needed the warm up, or was just in shock. I wrapped him up in another dry towel and he was still shaking. But thanks to the low humidity and his own efforts at bathing, he was soon dry and back to his normal self again. We were thankful that John was right there when it happened, and I guess that's a good demonstration of why he insists on keeping Ziggy locked down below at night!
Based on the weather forecasts we don't expect to do much sailing to Mazatlan, so we're hoping for a relatively smooth motor boat ride. We'll try to check-in and let you know how it's going.
Linda and John