7/22/2011 - Bahia San Gabriel

After another bouncy night at anchor (although not quite as bouncy as the night before), we slept in again, missing the tail end of the coromuel (south/southwest wind) that we could have ridden north a ways. But, unless we are really low on fuel, I doubt that "favorable wind" will ever win over against "sleeping in". But, after breakfast and getting things stowed, we finally did get underway. Our complacency is sort of justified in that we only planned to go about 11 nautical miles.

We motored out of Bahia Falsa but we did manage to raise our sails and run downwind wing-and-wing for a half hour or so. Got to use our new whisker pole. Finally, though, speeds of under 2 knots just got to us and we fired up Big Red. Naturally, abut the time we crossed the San Lorenzo Channel, we managed to get some wind from the east but, by that time we were close enough to our destination that we didn't want to bother with the sails.

Bahia San Gabriel is the southernmost anchorage on Isla Espiritu Santo. It's wide open to the SW so we will probably get our butts kicked again tonight. But, as long as we can handle the nightly butt-kickings, we're rewarded with amazingly uncrowded anchorages. The last 2 nights we had the place to ourselves and ton

ight it looks like we'll be sharing it with one other boat, s/v Jasdip. The anchorage is absolutely beautiful. We dropped our anchor in 17' of water that was clear enough that I could see the anchor and chain lying on the sandy bottom. Couldn't see them super clearly, but I could see them. After the first anchoring drill we looked around and said, "Man! We are a LONG way from the beach!". So, we upped anchor and moved in closer.

We're actually anchored in slightly deeper water now than we when we were further out. There is a long white sand beach with turquoise water between it and us. There are some mangroves behind parts of the beach and there is a huge colony of frigate birds nesting among one length of mangroves. Behind the mangroves are the barren-looking hills so common here. I say "barren-looking" because they are actually covered with cactus and other scrubby, mean-looking vegetation aptly suited to its environment.

We spent the afternoon aboard

but tomorrow, after we've weathered the roller coaster ride and are super-sure of our anchor's holding, we're going to take a little hike that runs from our beach to Playa Bonanza on the other side of Espiritu Santo. If the bounciness doesn't run us off tomorrow, we plan to be here for at least a day or two.

We are definitely cruising now as we no longer have enough cell signal to use our Banda Ancha card, thus, no internet. So, this blog entry as well as any e-mails we send or receive will be done via HF Radio. How cool is that?

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