Finally it feels like we’re slowing down and starting to soak up the tropical coast of Mexico. We’re spending more than one night in places, and spending more time resting and exploring than sailing. Emma joined us nearly a week ago in Mazatlan, where we stocked up on fresh fruit, veg and of course a big bag of tortillas, and then set off for Isla Isabella – 80 miles southwards. Sailed through the day with plenty of wind behind us, sun and calm seas – a perfect introduction to tropical passages for Emma. Late in the afternoon we saw a couple of whales – probably humpback, with the biggest breach we’ve seen so far.
We sailed on through the night, but ahead of schedule, we had to do a big dog-leg to pass time so that we arrived during daylight. As we approached the island, another boat came powering out of the darkness and snuck into the anchorage just ahead of us, taking the last bit of sandy bottom. We had to anchor over rocks, which sometimes makes it hard to get away again with tangled chain, or sometimes the anchor won’t set properly. We dropped our hook over a nice solid looking ledge, which was strong but gave us some trouble a couple of days later. First job; get in the water! The island is a natural reserve, with supposedly the best snorkelling on the Pacific coast of Mexico. With clear water at over 32 centigrade, it was good – loads of different species of fish of all colours, but very little live coral. I cleaned the barnacles off the bottom of the boat – they’d attached themselves in the week we were at Mazatlan in polluted water. We’re also a bit heavy, and low in the water, so the antifoul paint doesn’t come all the way up to the waterline. That’s something I need to figure out how to sort … ideally without hauling the boat out of the water.
We spent a couple of days exploring the island and the sea around it, meeting up with folk on another couple of boats; Jeff, Paige, Kim and Conrand on Amante, and Rob, Nancy and Mike on Shindig. The island has thousands of nesting frigate birds and boobies, including the rare blue-footed boobie. Most are not afraid of people, so we managed to get up pretty close. Iguana too, though not large one, and I think just a land species.
During the second night, the wind swung around, and we dragged our anchor chain neatly around a large boulder on the sea floor. This meant that whenever the boat rose on a wave, the short chain came tight with a nasty crunch. Sleeping in the forward cabin wasn’t really possible; Rose moved to the main saloon, but I stayed up front as I wanted to try and stay awake to listen for anything breaking. If the chain had broken, or something else gone awry, we would have been on the rocks of the island pretty quickly. It wasn’t windy, but we were only anchored in 4m of water not far off the shore. Morning came without any problems, and as is often the case with noises it sounded worse than it was. We spent a while shuffling the boat back and forth around the boulder to free the chain, then headed off towards the mainland.
9 hours of motoring later, in calm, grey, humid weather, we arrived at Matanchen Bay, just south of San Blas, where we anchored way out in the middle, hoping to be out of range of the attack squadrons of mosquitoes and jejene bugs. Amante had arrived a short while ahead of us, and invited us ashore for a beer – right into the depths of bug territory, at the worst time of day (sunset). We went anyway, plastered with bug repellent. After a couple of beers and a bit of leg slapping, the bar owner wanted to close up so we headed back to the boats where we joined up for dinner aboard Amante.
Spent Thursday exploring on land – starting with a “Jungle tour” up the river to a crocodile sanctuary. Mangroves turned into trees, rushes and reeds as we bumbled further upstream, eventually ending up at a slightly run down place where they had a range of creatures in cages. Crocs, parrots, pigs, deer, coati (something I’d never seen before – a bit like a possum) and a couple of agitated looking jaguar in a cage that was too small and too much concrete. Just around the corner from the sanctuary was a restaurant with a netted-off area of river for swimming. Nice to get the salt off!
Caught a taxi into San Blas to get some lunch – tasty fish tacos on the street – and have a look around. The look-around turned into a lazy afternoon in town, and we ended up getting back to the beach at sunset again, walking through the mangrove swamps just as the nasties were rising to go out hunting for blood. Running, for the dinghy, we threw a couple of dollar bills to the guy looking after the boats, and dashed out to sea. Everyone came back to Rafiki for beers, drinking late into the night – late for us being any time after 8pm now!
It’s been really humid for about a week now; I’m not sure if it’s just the weather at the moment, or the location. We’ve not had much wind. Hopefully it will get a bit drier soon. All the bare teak on board is dark with moisture; little specks all over the floors where I’ve dropped tools and damaged the varnish over the past year. Our veg only lasts a few days – oranges going mouldy pretty quickly. We washed all the fruit and veg in an iodine solution in Mazatlan to kill bugs and make things last longer. Getting used to food management in the tropics!
Off to town now to stock up on provisions again, and find some internet.
Road and Ocean 