Heading south

Well, hurricane Hillary has run her course, and happily for those of us summering in the Sea of Cortez, she stayed well offshore and was hardly noticed here. Saw a bit more cloudiness than the normal cloudless blue skies, but otherwise she was a thankful non event. There is another tropical disturbance, #9 of the season, now trying to form south of Acapulco (he'll be named Irwin if he gets his act together), but as of today this bad boy has only a 20% chance of becoming a hurricane, and models show that the rascal will likely stay well offshore. Still early to know for sure, and fingers are crossed. That discussion gives an idea of much of the chatter among the cruisers these days, as the late season storms are the ones with a history of swinging through the Sea.

There was a big gathering of boats, perhaps 25 or so, last Thursday, in Puerto Don Juan, the natural hurricane hole up here. (Also known as Puerto Pollo...cluck like a chicken when you say it!!!) We had a fantastic potluck on the beach, as boats realized that the end of the summer was upon us. All of these boats have summered up here, and while we're glad to finally be able to start to venture back into the hurricane belt, it was somewhat bittersweet to say our goodbyes to friends who will all be scattering in different directions. A bit like the end of summercamp!!

All that said, we left the Bay of Los Angeles in our wake two days ago, to begin our journey south. We're taking it slow, with one toe on the beach, until Irwin makes his intentions known with more certainty, but will be backtracking our early summer northward migration toward La Paz, where we'll spend several weeks. There are many new anchorages for us to explore on the way, though, as we missed many in our journey north earlier in the summer. Weather permitting, we plan on getting into Puerto Escondido in approx 2 weeks. Leaving Bravo on a mooring ball, we'll rent a car in Loreto and travel to San Diego to pick up new batteries, and a dive compressor for filling our scuba tanks. We've found that without it, it's just not practical to scuba dive in many places, as often the filling stations are few and far between.

We'll spend the holidays in La Paz (with a two week trip to the US for Thanksgiving), hauling Bravo out for a bottom paint job and other projects, and provisioning before we start our journey south. Not sure exactly what our route will be, but it may include spending this next year exploring central America and the Galapagos, before heading across to the south Pacific late in the year. As always, all plans are written in the sand at low tide...Stay tuned!!!

Fishing Report: Fishing continues to be excellent. Most of the dorado action is over, at least close to shore, but the attention these days is on sierra, a scrappy, tasty Spanish mackerel. With several in the freezer, we're eating well indeed!!!

Once again, we apologize for the lack of photos. Yes, we're still taking 'em, but we still have no good internet access to upload pix. Soon.......access to internet will return when we leave the northern Sea.