Sammy's birthday and some long delayed photos

We are in Bahia Candeleros which is just south of Puerto Escondido.  Currently in this super fancy resort with Appa at anchor.  Today is Samey's 4th birthday.  We sprung for a day pass at this resort and have the all inclusive package going. Pretty swanky. 

The crews from Sea Otter, Antipodes and Sand Dollar are all here. Very sweet of them to join us. Plans for today are just hanging out and swimming in the pools and the beach. Well maybe not the beach. Stingrays are hiding in the sand and we are all worried about getting stung. Poolside seems easier. 

Not sure where we are going tomorrow. I think we are going to head out to Isla Carmen and hit a couple of the anchorages there. Then maybe up the Sea of Cortez a bit more.  Have to start thinking about heading south at some point. 

The picture below is the anchorage and you can see that I am ashore typing this.  Finally getting some internet that is half way decent. 

On the way north couple days ago we had a 30 or so mile spinnaker run.  At the hoist, Max and I had the mother of all wraps. Damn solent stay is a sail magnet. Got the wrap undone and then had a great sail. Upon dropping the sail 4 hours later, we promptly ripped it a bit.  No big deal really. But it will have to get repaired before the Hawaii trip. That and the clew is starting to rip out of the jib.  Have a couple of upgrades to do the hatches and some small repairs but other than the sails and some odd jobs, we are looking good for Hawaii. 

Here are some photos that I can finally upload....

Appa under sail.  In this pic we are about 100 miles off shore. Half way to the baja. 

The next day. Motoring and fending off Sea Otter who was lobing water balloons at us. Max is returning fire.  

Us coming into the bay and getting ready to anchor in Ensenada Grande on Isla Espirtu.

Ben D. on Sea Otter taking Ben's picture. 

Floating 

Julie Shark!

In for the kill!

We just love Ensenada Grande!

Julie from Sea Otter and Nancy from Antipodes

Adam from Antipodes and Ben D. from Sea Otter

Chica from Sea Otter

Our Armada

Taking Antipode's tender out spear fishing

Hiking on Isla San Francisco

Isla SF anchorage

Crossing to the sea

Left yesterday for Isla del Partida. They have seals at the north point of the island and they are pretty tame (for wild animals) and you can swim with them. They play pretty rough so not sure about the kids going in but we'll see.
Left Mazatlan around 1100 and hoisted sail soon after. We were able to sail till 0330 today. Our boat is a little more <cough> "high performance" then the other boats we sail with right now, so while we sailed, they motored. Suckers.
The forecast now looks like no wind and it seems to be correct as we have been motoring steadily now since 0330.
Chris Tutmark ran all new wiring in the mast including VHF antenna wiring. With new connectors, new antenna, you get the picture. We have consistently been able to broadcast farther then anyone else in our group. Love that stuff. Anyway, yesterday I made like I was having a conversation with Antipodes on the VHF. Mind you Antipodes was 200 miles away at this point. People know that we have pretty good reception so they bought it for awhile. I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back.
Haven't caught anything yet.
Ben was sick all day yesterday and Jen is a bit queasy today. The seas are sloppy from yesterdays wind. It should settle down later today. Sammy is having no trouble and Max had one short bout of nausea. He can't be downstairs for long.
93 miles to go. Per the computer we will be at anchor around 1100 tomorrow.
Boat is working fine and the rudder fix seems to be working a treat.


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Leaving Mazatlan

Writing this in Puerto Escondido. Easter Sunday. 

We left Mazatlan days ago after spending a bunch of time and money there.  While in Mazatlan we met up with my cousin Tim and his wife, Jackie along with her sister Jamie and her husband Chuck. Gail the mom of Jackie and Jamie was there also.  Had a great dinner one Sunday night with them, come to think of it we had dinner with them Friday also.  

Great times with great family.  Glad we got to make the connection again.  Weird how things work.  Tim lives in Portland and we never see each other.  It takes almost a random encounter like this to reconnect. Had a great time with him and his family. 

Below are the photos of the rudder fix.  The first photo shows the rudder stock and the square fitting on top of it.  Another solid piece of steel tubing attaches to the stock via a sleeve and then 8 set screws. The top of the new piece goes into a carrier bearing and that is glassed into the seats.  Very solid now. No wiggle at all.

I was going to show a picture of our new cushions but will wait for Jen to do that. 

Here are some photos of the first island we hit after our 240 mile trip across the Sea of Cortez. 

This is Esenada grande on Espirtu Santo.  Love it here

Here are some from Isla San Francisco.   Beautiful here also.

On our way to Escondido.