Thursday, November-21-13

Isla Isabel. there is some overlap with our last post so no… its not a deja vue thing!

We had an awesome night sail down from Mazatlán Isla Isabela that lay about 90 miles to the south east of us. We had 10 to 15 knots of wind from the stern and a nearly a full moon rising directly off our bow. I set the pole on the headsail and vanged the main boom to the rail so we had a nice sail running wing and wing. Didn’t set any speed records but we managed to average between four and five knots. Mark and Cathy from Sweet Chariot sailed along with us most of the night. Mark doesn’t have a pole for his headsail so he had to sail a zigzag pattern in an effort to keep his sails full. This course just left him frustrated so by about midnight he dropped all sails and motored a direct course for the rest of the night so we soon lost sight of his lights.

We spotted the island just as day broke, we were still ca couple of hours out so I decided to put down the fishing gear. As luck would have it, I nailed something, and it was big. I played it for half an hour before losing it. I never saw what it was… big tuna maybe.

We anchored in what I began to call out “usual spot” in the more protected south bay. (this was our fourth time here in the past year) The bottom is rocky and can foul your anchor but I’m not worried as I have my diving gear aboard and I think I know this bottom well as we lost and anchor here last year and Jan and I spent the better part of the day diving trying to locate it, which we eventually did.

There we some local fisherman camped on the beach in shacks and half a dozen seiners anchored nearby, one of which Mark and I visited and bought some fresh prawns. Went ashore and climbed “lighthouse hill” with Mark and took some pics, awesome view. We wanted an early night as we were just bagged from the grueling sail from Mazatlán. Not really but sounds good don’t it? But we had a social engagement with our friends. We played dominos with Kathy and Mark and two other cruisers aboard Sweet Chariot.  Good night but it was all over by 9pm so I fired up the generator and we watched a movie and had popcorn.

Woke up to a heavy thunder shower that lasted for about an hour, no wind just lots of rain. All bluster no bight. Another beautiful day so Mark, Kathy and I snorkeled on the reef after which I went spear fishing, got a little Cabra and one lobster. Had lobster salad for dinner last night. We also hiked up the volcano and over to the far side to see the Boobies. Not as many as last time as it’s still early in the season. But lots of Frigate Birds but they are not nesting much either. We decided that we would be moving on to san Blas in a day or so as Jan did not sleep well again, anchorage is a bit rolly, hopeful  San Blas will be calmer, will stay there for a few days so she can rest up.