A picture of 'A Capella' against the rising sun We saw all sorts of wildlife, the most interesting of which was a seal reclining on the surface, as if he were in a lazy-boy chair. At one point we crossed over a sea mount, where the normally 300’ deep bottom had risen to 40’ from the surface. This “shallow” water allows kelp to grow and provides a feeding place for small and large fish. As we approached the sea mount (indicated on our GPS) we saw a swarm of birds and a pod of dolphins all feeding feverishly on some unlucky school of fish that was too near the surface for their own good. It appears that the pelicans didn’t try to grab any dolphins and the dolphins were uninterested in eating feathers. We also saw several manta rays jumping out of the water to at least a 4’ height, where they seemed to hang for a while and then do a belly flop to impress the others.
You’ve heard of flying fish, and we’ve seen several in the past, but now we’ve seen a “skipping fish.” This is a fairly long narrow fish that seems to skim over the surface, touching its tail every so often to provide additional impetus. We have seen these fish skim the surface for a good 50 yards at a time. They don’t appear to have wings – they just look like a small arrow skimming along on its tail with its head at a 45° angle up. We haven’t noticed any fish pursuing them, at least none that break the surface of the water themselves. We’re not sure how many other unknown fish we will eventually see.
We are now in a hot spot in the Sea of Cortez: the inside air temperature is about 98°, the water temperature is about 80°, and the humidity must be at least 90%. This is the weather that others warned us about when we decided to go up into the Sea of Cortez for the summer, which is the “OFF” season here. We have all the fans on in the cabin all day and all night in order to at least circulate the warm air. It actually gets a bit cooler at about 4AM in the morning, but soon warms up by 7AM when the sun comes up.
Soon after anchoring here, I was coated in my own sweat; so I stepped to the rail and jumped into the water to cool off. Surprise! The water was so warm that I didn’t feel the normal jolt one gets when entering the water, which is usually colder than the outside air. In fact the water felt like a bathtub. The best part was getting out and letting the warm wind start the evaporation and cooling process. However, in a matter of minutes I was dry again and then the sweat came penetrating back through my pores as bad as before. I have described this in the first person because Sheilagh doesn’t “sweat,” she “glows”; so this situation doesn’t affect her in the same way.
Sheilagh’s been sleeping on the top of the boat with a towel to lie on and I’ve been sleeping on cushions in the cockpit. Apparently she is a hardier person than I am, but she usually goes below by 2AM. We erected the domed shades that we had built for the boat; so the deck is protected from the sun during the hot part of the day. We do get some sun under the edges in the morning and evenings, but that’s when we go overboard and cool off. We bought a couple of those psychedelic neoprene noodles that you may have seen people using to sit in the water at neck height. They do a great job of letting us sit in the water next to the boat without any effort while we cool off.
The major highway going south in Baja passes around our cove, so we hear the roar of semis gearing down with loud brakes as they come down the hill and then gearing back up with a roar of the engine to climb back out of here. At first we thought we were being dive-bombed by fighter planes, but soon learned the reason for the noise. In the first bay we anchored in we found that the restaurant and tienda had been closed for the off season. So on Sunday we moved the boat over to El Burro cove which still has a palapa and a tienda (a restaurant and store for those who haven’t been following our blog long enough to have picked up those Mexican terms). As of this writing, most of the sailboats that were in our old cove have now moved over here as well. Now if we could just find a “lavanderia” (laundry), we could stop hand washing our clothing and actually see the colors again.
On Friday we went into the nearby town of Mulegé (pronounced Moo-la-hay’) to replenish our supplies and have a restaurant meal for the first time in about ten days. Naturally we ordered hamburguesas con queso con papas (cheeseburgers with fries) and some cold beer. Then we did grocery shopping, stopped by a package store for a case of beer, and were stymied that the main store in town didn’t have sufficient diet cokes to sell us a case. I went wandering through town and spied a Coca Cola delivery truck and asked where they had customers who sold cases of coke. The driver’s reply was to open up the side of the truck and sell me a case directly – not something most distributors would do in the U.S. so as not to offend their store customers.
Lunching with Sheilagh, Susan and Jim from 'Windward Bound,' and Ed and Cornelia from 'A Cappella' (Cornelia was taking a picture at the same time) in Mulegé
You’ve heard of flying fish, and we’ve seen several in the past, but now we’ve seen a “skipping fish.” This is a fairly long narrow fish that seems to skim over the surface, touching its tail every so often to provide additional impetus. We have seen these fish skim the surface for a good 50 yards at a time. They don’t appear to have wings – they just look like a small arrow skimming along on its tail with its head at a 45° angle up. We haven’t noticed any fish pursuing them, at least none that break the surface of the water themselves. We’re not sure how many other unknown fish we will eventually see.
We are now in a hot spot in the Sea of Cortez: the inside air temperature is about 98°, the water temperature is about 80°, and the humidity must be at least 90%. This is the weather that others warned us about when we decided to go up into the Sea of Cortez for the summer, which is the “OFF” season here. We have all the fans on in the cabin all day and all night in order to at least circulate the warm air. It actually gets a bit cooler at about 4AM in the morning, but soon warms up by 7AM when the sun comes up.
Soon after anchoring here, I was coated in my own sweat; so I stepped to the rail and jumped into the water to cool off. Surprise! The water was so warm that I didn’t feel the normal jolt one gets when entering the water, which is usually colder than the outside air. In fact the water felt like a bathtub. The best part was getting out and letting the warm wind start the evaporation and cooling process. However, in a matter of minutes I was dry again and then the sweat came penetrating back through my pores as bad as before. I have described this in the first person because Sheilagh doesn’t “sweat,” she “glows”; so this situation doesn’t affect her in the same way.
Sheilagh’s been sleeping on the top of the boat with a towel to lie on and I’ve been sleeping on cushions in the cockpit. Apparently she is a hardier person than I am, but she usually goes below by 2AM. We erected the domed shades that we had built for the boat; so the deck is protected from the sun during the hot part of the day. We do get some sun under the edges in the morning and evenings, but that’s when we go overboard and cool off. We bought a couple of those psychedelic neoprene noodles that you may have seen people using to sit in the water at neck height. They do a great job of letting us sit in the water next to the boat without any effort while we cool off.
The major highway going south in Baja passes around our cove, so we hear the roar of semis gearing down with loud brakes as they come down the hill and then gearing back up with a roar of the engine to climb back out of here. At first we thought we were being dive-bombed by fighter planes, but soon learned the reason for the noise. In the first bay we anchored in we found that the restaurant and tienda had been closed for the off season. So on Sunday we moved the boat over to El Burro cove which still has a palapa and a tienda (a restaurant and store for those who haven’t been following our blog long enough to have picked up those Mexican terms). As of this writing, most of the sailboats that were in our old cove have now moved over here as well. Now if we could just find a “lavanderia” (laundry), we could stop hand washing our clothing and actually see the colors again.
On Friday we went into the nearby town of Mulegé (pronounced Moo-la-hay’) to replenish our supplies and have a restaurant meal for the first time in about ten days. Naturally we ordered hamburguesas con queso con papas (cheeseburgers with fries) and some cold beer. Then we did grocery shopping, stopped by a package store for a case of beer, and were stymied that the main store in town didn’t have sufficient diet cokes to sell us a case. I went wandering through town and spied a Coca Cola delivery truck and asked where they had customers who sold cases of coke. The driver’s reply was to open up the side of the truck and sell me a case directly – not something most distributors would do in the U.S. so as not to offend their store customers.
Lunching with Sheilagh, Susan and Jim from 'Windward Bound,' and Ed and Cornelia from 'A Cappella' (Cornelia was taking a picture at the same time) in MulegéGetting into Mulegé is difficult because it is 13 miles from the beach with no phone connections to call a cab. We have to hitchhike into town, buy supplies, and then take a cab back out to the beach - $17 one way. On our way in on Friday we were approached by a van when we landed our dinghy on the beach. It was loaded with blankets (blankets in this weather?), jewelry, T-shirts, hats and a variety of other items to sell to tourists. The beach was entirely empty except for us, and we were not interested in buying anything. We told the vendor that we were more interested in a ride into town. He thought about it for a minute, looked up and down the empty beach, and promptly shifted the merchandise in his van to make room for us. He didn’t ask for any payment when we arrived; so we gave him 100 pesos ($10) for the trip and he went back out to the beach to sell to the non-existent tourists there. When we returned by cab, he had put up a hammock in the shade of a palapa-like structure on the beach and was taking a nap. We ended up buying a couple of T-shirts and a bracelet for a friend’s birthday party the next day as a way to show our appreciation for his earlier help. I think I got the last two extra large T-shirts in his van that didn’t have a suggestive picture or slogan.
On Saturday our friends Ed and Cornelia had invited us to share in her latest birthday remembrance (I have learned not to state ages for women), along with three other couples, to a pig roast at a local hotel called the Serenidad – very famous for hosting movie stars over the years who came down to fish, and also famous for the Saturday night pig roast that had been going on for some 40+ years. We had cabs previously arranged to pick us up on the beach, and they whisked us into the hotel in short order. There we had margaritas and a roast pig dinner to the sound of Mariachi music – originally the hotel had used Mariachi performers, but in this case there was a single musician playing a synthesizer that sounded like a Mariachi band – so much for authenticity, but an “attaboy” for keeping costs down. It was a great evening for all of us, and ended as usual with wet feet pushing our dinghies off the beach to get back to our boats.
Sheilagh had worn a nice dress and a pair of shoes; so I had offered to carry her off the dinghy at the start of the trip to keep everything dry. As I prepared to take her in my arms (as a romantic gesture) she threw herself over my shoulder in a modified fireman’s carry, and after stumbling backwards a moment, I carried her to the beach over my shoulder (see picture nearby). She’s darn lucky I didn’t slip and fall backwards into the water with both of us, but she was pleased with her crowd-stopping performance in front of the others. There’s no understanding this woman.We’ve all been sweltering in the heat and humidity here, which means there is little motivation to exercise. It occurred to me that a good way to exercise and keep cool is to swim, something I used to do in the lake at Lake of the Pines. I tied our lightweight kayak to a line around my waist and, with the aid of a mask and snorkel (to help my breathing in the waves), I swam around the fleet of sailboats in the harbor in about half an hour of swimming. The water was actually too warm to be very comfortable, but the temperature was a lot better in the water than out of it. The next day a couple of extra sailboats had come into the cove; so the swimming distance was increased a bit. We are currently in a location where a lot of cruisers are sailing in for a 4th-of-July celebration on Friday. That means the fleet should grow quite a bit in the next few days; so I get to increase my exercise load each day until my body is a work of art – okay, maybe a work of modern art, which could look like anything.
We were talking with some other cruisers the other day, and found that everyone was feeling hot and sticky nearly all the time. Naturally this limits the amount of hugging we do with our spouses, as well as any other incidental contact. One cruiser said “Why do you think the other name for the Sea of Cortez is the Sea of Celibacy?” TMI, I know! More later . . .
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