6/4/2011 - Balandra to Ensenada Grande

It blew like stink last night. Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense but, nevertheless, that's a common term heard among sailors. I assume it was a coromuel since it was out of the SW-ish. All I know for sure is that the wind came up about sundown and continued to blow like crazy all night long. One time I got up and took my handheld meter out and read a steady 15-17 knots with occasional gusts to 23 knots. Fortunately, there was no room for seas to build up so it wasn't particularly uncomfortable. We got up at our regular rising time, had a leisurely breakfast and, by 10:00 were on our way to Ensenada Grande. Of course, by then there was absolutely NO wind. Just before we reached EG we got a little bit of wind but by then we were there so today was another of our many motor boat rides.

It was an uneventful trip. When we got to EG there was only one other boat but, by dark there were about 8 boats anchored. We were sitting in the cockpit when we heard "Siempre Sabado, Siempre Sabado, this is Kievit" on the VHF. I'm not sure who was more surprised, us to hear our name called or them to get a response. They were a few miles north of EG watching whales and dolphins and planned to spend the night here at EG. After they anchored, Lulu got her swim in by swimming over to say "Hello". They invited us to dinner (sushi) and we weren't about to turn them down.

Since we're just here overnight, we opted to not launch the PortaBote but instead to just blow up the Sevylor "Fiji" 2-man kayak. What a mistake. What a piece of crap. I don't think we saved any time at all. Besides that, while we were paddling over to Kievit, we could not make the thing go straight. Any little gust of wind (we thought) would start us turning one direction and it was almost impossible to correct the turn. But, once we did get going the other way, more often than not we would just keep going. Traveling in a straight line was apparently not what these boats were designed to do.

We had a very pleasant evening on Kievit eating sushi, watching the turtles swimming around, watching the manta rays jump out of the water, playing "Oh Hell" (a card game), and just visiting. When it came time to paddle back home I was encouraged as there was absolutely not a breath of wind to screw us up. However, as it turns out, the Sevylor doesn't need wind to screw us up. It's more than capable of doing that all on its own. We actually turned a full 360 degree circle on the way back because I couldn't correct the turn. Very embarrassing - so glad it was dark. Anyway, we'll be unloading this hunk of junk at the first opportunity and looking for something else to use as a back-up dinghy. In the meantime, we'll just launch the PortaBote.

Today's trip was all of 16 nautical miles and took us about 3.5 hours. Tomorrow's trip, to San Evaristo, will be about 28 miles and will probably take 6-7 hours, depending on wind availability. As long as we leave by 10:00 again, we should be good.

And that's it for today. It's very still outside. Warm and humid too. Very different from last night.

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