Thursday February 9, 2012 - Costa Baja Marina

Hard to believe that not only is it 2012, but we are already well into the month of February. I believe that I have caught a bad case of the local malady “manana”. It is easy to do when it feels as if all deadlines are completely artificial and self imposed in our current life style. So everyday I have blogging on my to do list, and everyday passes with much of list untouched. Today is a get it done day! We got our rugs cleaned after five years of spills. What a difference! While they were out in the sun, I got the floor beautifully clean and defrosted the freezer. Now to blog!

Time has been flying for us. We left Mexico in early December for a snowy and cold Anchorage holiday season. It was both unusually cold and unusually snowy this year and perfect for feeling Christmasy.

We lost no time in decorating both inside and outside the house. Inside we brought up boxes from the crawl space. There were all the decorations that we put away three years ago, many of them with special memories associated. Bella helped decorate a wonderful smelling tree. She is seven and quite tall which was helpful and she no longer hangs everything in the same small area, instead distributing ornaments well over the tree. She was completely into the Christmas spirit. Outside Earl set up a couple of artificial trees with LED lights which do not melt the snow. They end up looking like colored sno cones.

My sister Cricket came to spend Christmas with us. This was her third Anchorage Christmas and she came prepared to take wonderful photos of trees covered with hoar frost against blue skies with her new camera. Of course the result of this preparation was constant snow and overcast skies during her visit. It was wonderful to have her with us, so hopefully she will come again and hope for better photographic conditions.

We took every possible opportunity to see our children, grandchildren and friends. It was wonderful. The grandchildren are all growing fast, with little Amelia turning three in January. Sara is expecting her brother, currently called Baby Ned by by Amelia, and everyone else, on April 1. We are very excited!

After a very snowy month in Anchorage, we flew down to La Conner Washington, and we brought the snow with us. I then went on to Boston to check on our remodeling project in Stockbridge, and I brought snow there are well. I decided that if it snowed in La Paz I would look into getting an exorcist.

Earl arrived here January 18th and spent the next couple of days doing tasks. We now have five new batteries. The original ones had never really recovered from being drawn down to nothing for an extended period when we first moored in La Conner and left for 5 weeks with the power improperly hooked up. Earl is very happy with the level of the battery voltage in the morning when we are anchored. He also fixed the dingy rank on the top which had nearly proved fatal several times in the past. We now lift if off when it is not in use. What a difference it makes to the usefulness of the boat deck!

We had hoped that the windy weather would disappear in 2012. So far it has not. We seem to have real winds every few days and the weather is far cooler than we had hoped. It has rarely hit 80, and although the water temperature is in the upper 60’s, we have not been tempted to swim.

We caught up with our friends John and Maria Luisa. They have new - for them- boat. The Viking Spirit is a 65 foot Ocean Alexander and is very nicely laid out. A large back deck, big salon, pilothouse with dinette and kitchen, three nice state rooms, and a wonderful boat deck. I think they will love it and we look forward to spending time with them there.

Then finally off we went, with no particular destination in mind. We spent several days making our way up to the Hook at Isla San Francisco, which was lovely as always. There were quite a number of sail boats keeping us company. For whatever reason, we have found more company this year than in the past. We were joined by an enormous expedition yacht - the type that can and do travel the seven seas, complete with a helicopter and a 40 foot run about on deck. It is nice to feel petite!

The next day was calm and we ran up the west side of Isla San Jose to a point called Salinas to look for nautilus shells. It was a special day. We saw no shells on the beach so we meandered back and forth in the dingy in the shallow water looking down in hopes of spotting shells on the bottom. The water was lovely and clear and we saw many star fish but no shells. It was one of the those wonderful times when you know it is special even at the time.

Eagle eyed Earl saw some sea gulls diving on something in the water’s edge and we went over to investigate. There was a Humbolt squid, about 3 or 4 feet long, flailing in the shallows. It had evidently been hurt, probably by a whale, and was missing several tentacles. We decided to harvest it. Since our knowledge of squid morphology was limited we were not sure were to start to kill it. Earl finally just started stabbing and cut off the mantle which was lovely white meat about an inch thick.

We were very excited to try it. The few times we have had really fresh calamari, we loved it. I took a look in my fish cook book and read that one must be very careful not to overcook squid - unless you decided to stew it. It is tough when raw and tough when overcooked, so there is an just cooked point to go for. We pan fried strips. I was not impressed. I found the flavor a little odd and the meat decidedly. We have since tried it was fritters, which I passed on and Earl eat. Of course, as he says, “he likes that kind of thing”. I hope so, because we have 5 more large slabs in the freezer.

After a quick stop in La Paz to get some milk, eggs and veggies, we headed south for Bahia de los Muertos (Bay of the Dead) which has been renamed by a developer Bahia de los Suenos (Bay of Dreams). It is about a days run south of La Paz and we fished all the way down, catching only skip jack which we released. The Bay is a wonderful north wind anchorage and we were joined by three sailboats, two coming from the south and one which followed us from the north.

We spent several days there. The couple which had come from the north (Roger and Karen) have spent a number of years in the Sea. We told them about our search for nautilus shells and found out that we had been looking for the wrong thing. What we may find at Salinas are not the nautilus shells that I had seen before, but ‘paper nautilus’ which the internet informed us were the eggs cases of a type of octopus. They are about 3 inches across and extreme fragile. Now that we know what to look for, perhaps we will do better another time.

We spent a nice evening with the couples from the other boats who were on their way to La Paz having spent the summer in La Cruz. Although it was extremely hot and humid, they loved being there, as one of just a few boats in the marina. They really had the chance to make friends in the town with locals. They had spent the prior summer up north in Bahia de los Angeles which was hotter, but far less humid. Scott showed us some of their photos from that summer. Apparently there a a number of whale sharks resident their and one of their special joys was swimming with them. On Sunday we all met at the little restaurant on the beach to watch the superbowl game. Earl got his fix!

On the way back into La Paz we looked for whale sharks near the entrance to the town harbor. We found none but did enjoy visits with some very mellow porpoise.

That night I woke to wind and pouring rain. At least I thought it was the wind until Earl pointed out that it was thunder. It rained most of the next day leaving huge puddles around town that will take a while to disappear. There is little drainage here.

Now we are looking forward to receiving a special visitor. Our friend - for close to 50 years - Charlie is coming from Denver to visit. We never dared dream that he would ever take us up on our invitation and we are thrilled to be able to show him this part of the world with which we have fallen in love.