80 degrees 04.776 minutes W
We enjoyed our stay in the large bay inside Punta Ballena. It was rolly enough to use the rocker stopper but more comfortable than Cabo Pasado. Yesterday, after reanchoring closer in towards the pier, we launched our dinghy and went to shore with Sarana. I was happy to share our bug spray when Sherrell and I were immediately attacked by small black "see-ums." The inflatable was a major source of admiration and curiosity for a dozen young boys and even a few grown-ups. As we started to walk away from the dinghy one boy wanted to know if John would give him the key so he could take it out for a spin while we were gone!
We began walking the narrow paved road leading out to the highway, but quickly climbed into the back of a covered pickup truck with bench seats for a "bus" ride to town. Jama is very small but it has a lovely, new looking town square, a Coactur bus station, and a charming restaurant called Bar-Budo (on Av. Jama between Delgado and San Francisco streets, just a few blocks past the square) where we ate a nice almuerzo. We had a bit of confusion clarifying that the beautiful beach advertised as being at Jama was actually the beach in the anchorage, where the village is called El Metal. And that the scenic river at Jama was the one we had crossed in the bus, and not really a tourist attraction. With no body of water as a possible destination for a walk after our lunch, we headed back to "our" beach to stretch our legs.
The dinghy and its contents - with the addition of some beach sand - was right where we left it. John took it out by himself to meet the three of us past the pier so we could all walk out around the point. The tide was still mostly low and it was a wonderful long walk on hard packed sand. The days have been overcast with heavy drizzle each morning to keep us moist and cool.
There is a Port Captain down at the opposite end of the beach in El Metal, and we believe he made a general announcement regarding zarpes on VHF 16 yesterday morning. To prevent hard feelings over not checking in we thought it prudent to depart this morning. We're enjoying another lovely spinnaker sail with low swell from the WSW and SW winds of 10-12, occasionally as high as 15 kt. John is taking a tip from our friend, Ed on Wind Dancer, and is poling the spinnaker out to windward with the whisker pole.
We've now arrived at Pedernales and are anchored in about 12' of water as close to the beach as we can get. But it's futile and as we expected we're still being rocked around by the swell rolling in from the west. The bay just isn't deep enough to get much protection from the point. But we'll spend the night here and get an early start tomorrow morning for the 50 nm day run to Punta Galera.
We've had a report that the Google Earth link in our last post is malfunctioning. We'll try it again in this post but it may be something we have to fix when we get internet access again, so bear with us.
Linda and John
http://www.geocities.com/svnakia/map_app.htm?0,03.046,N,80,04.776,W,Punta%20Pedernales,