January 22, Mazatlan

We left San Blas early in the morning, having agreed that it is definitely a place we will revisit next year. It was a delightful surprise. Our run northwest to Isla Isabela was mellow. We saw a good many shrimpers along the way. This part of the coast has a smooth bottom apparently ideal for dragging gear. The rigging on the shrimp boats is invariably festooned with pelicans. From a distance, they look like pennants.

Isla Isabela is only about 40 miles from San Blas so we were there by early afternoon. There are two anchorages, one in a bay on the south side of Isla Isabela and the other on the east side, south of a couple of odd rocks called the Monas (dress manikins). There were two sailboats on the south side of the Island, so we anchored below the Monas and had the whole east side of the island to ourselves. We took a dingy ride around the Monas. The water was incredibly clear and we could see schools of fish. Then we went on to the island. It is a national park and bird rookery. The frigate birds breed there, and the trees are loaded with their nests. The males have bright red chests which they show off, and the babies are white balls of fuzz. Blue footed boobies also nest on the island, but Earl thinks they are stupid birds and therefore declined to go look for any of their nests.

Afterwards we went swimming in the 80 degree water. Earl had made a ladder for the dingy from a model I saw on the internet and we decided to try it out. It is essentially a rope ladder that hangs over the pontoon. Well, after changing the rigging a couple of times, we made it work. It is not pretty to see, but we can actually crawl our way back into the dingy. Earl is thinking about additional model improvements.

There were whales around the island the whole time we were there. I think there were four or five of them in the immediate area and they played around not 150 yards off the boat most of the time we were there. Unfortunately, we did not get any good photos. We are so spoiled that just a whale back or tail is no longer worth photographing, and it is almost impossible to get photos of them breaching. Maybe I can make it a mission for Earl.

The next morning we woke to see that we had acquired a neighbor overnight, a sport fisher who had come in after we called it a day. By 9 am, we had been joined by five sailboats who had come from Mazatlan overnight and tried to anchor as close to us as possible. Apparently we are unusual in that we don’t boat with buddies. We are also going north at a time when most boats are going south. Wrong way Corrigan.

We had a pleasant day, I kayaked, Earl replaced the solenoid in the winch and we swam. Then as it was getting dark, we pulled our anchor, said goodbye to a beautiful place and took off for Mazatlan some 80 miles north. We had, as tends to be the case, a lovely night of traveling. It is incredibly peaceful running at night in these waters. The downside is that we arrive tired. Today was no exception, and we spent most of the afternoon napping and will head for bed early.