When I first started looking for boats, I figured it might be possible to sail south before hurricane season fired up and spend the summer months in Panama or Ecuador before continuing to Chile.  When I ended up finding my boat so far north, I realized that I'd never make it south in time, and I elected to spend hurricane season in the Sea of Cortez.

There are only two other major hurricanes that have ever hit the Baja Peninsula since folks started keeping track, and the Sea of Cortez is generally recognized as a safe haven during hurricane season.  The further north and east one travels, the safer things get, but Cabo is a convenient airport for visitors to fly in and out of, so I've stayed pretty close to it.  It has officially been hurricane season since June, and, while some have developed and spun out to sea, nothing had come anywhere close to La Paz before I left to return to the states.  My friend Autumn had mentioned that she was itching to be down in Mexico close to the sea and I offered to let her live on the Rascal if she would be willing to look out for her while I was gone.  We were both stoked on the plan, and we met up about a month ago to sail for a few days and get the Rascal anchored in a safe place.

The first few weeks passed by uneventfully, and I think Autumn was really enjoying the La Paz cruising community and living on the boat (not to mention the tacos and cervezas).  On the third week, a hurricane named Norbert began to develop in Southern Mexico, and we spent quite a bit of time discussing it via text message.  The track showed it curving off to the westward (just like all the other storms that've developed this year) and as we continued to monitor, it stayed true to the models and went out to sea.  

A couple of days later, another depression (that would eventually become Odile) started to build and the models predicted the same strengthening trend and a northwest path that Norbert took.  This hurricane, however, didn't stay true to its models.  Each time I'd check for updates, I'd see that it had inched further north and increased in strength.  From Friday night to Saturday night alone, it jumped from 65mph to 135mph!  As it got closer to Cabo, Autumn and I had a talk, recognized the possibility that it would skim over part of the peninsula, and spoke about our options.  The time was too late to try and run north or east to safer waters.  We could either move the boat to a marina or keep it anchored in a well protected anchorage where no other boats were likely to drag toward her.  The last major storm (in the 1980s) to hit La Paz totally devastated the marinas, with numerous pylons getting uprooted, docks coming adrift and smashing together, and dozens of boats sinking in their docklines.   Around La Paz, some folks elected to move into marinas and others decided to stay anchored out or on moorings.  We discussed all of this at length, and Autumn made the choice to stay on the boat.  

I was very careful about how I anchored the boat before I left and it takes a pretty substantial anchoring system to weather a storm as serious as a hurricane.  My primary anchor, a CQR, is way oversized and is rated to hold boats that're literally twice as long as mine with several times the displacement and windage.  I've never had it drag before and it alone should be more than enough to hold the boat through any ordinary storm.  It also has a swiveling shank, so its good at resetting itself if the wind shifts or if currents spin the boat around.  Rather than just rely on the CQR, however, I decided to set two anchors in tandem.  

The theory behind tandem anchoring is relies upon the relationship between holding power and the angle that the rode pulls at.  If you have an anchor on the bottom and pull straight up on it, it will hold very little.  If you have a lot of line out and you pull at a low angle with respect to the bottom, it will have very high holding power.  With tandem anchoring, a second anchor is attached to the shank of the first, and they're both set along the bottom.  The primary anchor sets as normal, and if it were ever to drag, it would pull and set the secondary anchor.  This second anchor would effectively have infinite scope (because its pulling perfectly parallel to the ground) and exceptionally high holding power as a result.  This secondary anchor also helps to keep the primary well buried and should halt dragging as soon as it happens.  The diagram down below illustrates how my anchoring system was planned.  It also includes a third anchor that was available should the first two fail for some reason, but we decided not to set it before the storm, due to the risk of it fouling the primary system.

Nearly everyone that has weathered a hurricane agrees that chafe (where a rope rubs against something and eventually snaps) is the biggest source of failure in these anchoring systems, and I built the system out of chain entirely with this in mind.  You'll also notice a "snubber" at the top of the chain which is a nylon line that acts as a shock absorber to limit the peak loads on the anchoring system.

On Sunday morning, it was very clear that Odile would come close to La Paz with substantial force and Autumn started battening down hatches, charging devices, and removing all extraneous equipment from the deck.  I was glued to the computer, checking weather forecasts and texting back and forth with Autumn every few minutes.  We knew it would be bad (though we didn't realize quite how bad it would get), but we were both feeling confident that Autumn was well prepared, the Rascal was well setup, and we had done everything we could to ensure that both would stay safe.

Even up until Sunday, most of the forecast models showed Odile moving to the northwest, but in the end it smacked directly into Cabo.  The wind started to build in La Paz that afternoon, and Autumn donned her lifejacket, complete with emergency beacons just as the storm started up.  Several boats (some unattended, others derelict) started dragging towards the beach while it was still light out.  

Autumn relayed all of this to me, and somehow she kept cell phone service until the height of the storm.  As the winds built out of the northeast, night fell, and she could just barely make out the boats close to her in the anchorage.  One by one, they continued to drag away into the darkness, and she could hear people on the radio calling for help and updating folks on their location.  The Rascal continued to hold strong and she started the motor (to motor into the wind and minimize the amount of strain on the anchors) around 1 in the morning.  I continued to send as many updates as possible about weather and expected conditions.  Despite the exceptional wind and waves battering and bouncing the Rascal around, Autumn kept her cool through the whole ordeal.  Around 2:00 in the morning, someone in the marina reported 108 mph winds.  Here is a description, in her own words, of the conditions on the Rascal during the storm:

She continued to monitor her position on the GPS and make sure lines all looked good on the bow and at 2:22 AM she texted "Loud Noises!".  At first, I thought she was quoting the movie Anchorman, which I didn't find to be funny; but it soon became clear that something on the boat had failed and was making loud noises up on the bow.  After doing some investigating in hindsight, its become clear that the pull from the rascal stretched the snubber to the point that the chain was taking the tension (which is less than ideal because of the shock loading the results from the chain that can't stretch).  I had tied the bitter end of the chain to an exceptionally strong cleat on the deck of the rascal with a 5/8 dock line.  I had never expected it to come tight (the chain was wrapped over the windlass, and around a tube in the chain locker), and I thought that this beefy dockline could hold the strain if it did.  It apparently could not and the parting of the dockline (and the escape of the chain) is what had caused the loud noises she was hearing.  The snubber, however, was still attached to the chain and it stretched an incredible amount, and held the boat for about another 5 minutes before it finally parted.  Below in yellow is the GPS track of the entire event. The thick part at the right side is swaying back and forth in the wind at anchor.  The short line to the southwest is where the snubber stretched, but continued to hold.  The two long line segments leading to the red pin is where the boat was driven by the east winds after the snubber broke. 

The Rascal beached herself on the Mogote (a low spit of land on the far side of the harbor).  When she came to rest, she was heeled over at about 45 degrees and she was taking a bunch of waves and wash on her stern.  Autumn was still safe and unharmed in the boat, the boat's interior was still dry,  and she sent a message that said "ground" at 2:30am indicating that she had landed on the beach.  I'm sure she was horrified about what was happening around her, but she stayed relatively calm and was still able to send messages to me.  At 2:36, she sent a message asking, "Jump off boat?" and that's the last I heard from her via text.

The silence that followed was sickening.  I wasn't sure if she had just lost cell service or if she had decided to abandon the boat.  She had a Delorme InReach which is like a satphone, except instead of calls, it just sends text messages.  It doesn't rely on cell towers (satelites instead), so it'll send a text (with a gps location attached) from anywhere in the world, in any conditions.  Its waterproof as well.  She also had, attached to her, a PEPIRB (Personal Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) which transmits her exact location to the emergency response and coordination center at the US Air Force for them to coordinate search and rescue efforts.  It is only to be used in life threatening emergencies and its the most reliable emergency communication device available.

The next hour felt like an eternity.  At 3:45AM, I got a call from the Air Force telling me that the PEPIRB had been activated.  This was good news, because it meant that she was still safe and functional enough to be able to activate it.  It could also be bad news, however, because it meant that she must be in a pretty dire situation.  The Air Force told me that they'd be forwarding the message to the Mexican Search and Rescue group and they gave me a Mexican number to call.  I called the number and nobody spoke any english.  I relayed all of the information I could, along with her location and they said they would call me back when they had an update for me.

Finally at 4:35 AM, I got a message from Autumn's InReach that said: "Abandon boat" and it had a location that put her in the mangroves.  I was stoked to get this, because the user interface of the InReach is a little tricky to use and if she was functional enough to use it, I knew she must've been in good shape.  I called the Mexican SAR group again to give them an update and they couldn't seem to figure out what I was talking about.  Finally they made sense of what I was saying and I gave them an updated latitude and longitude to communicate with the folks in La Paz.

As the day broke, Autumn sent a few more InReach messages, and at 10 AM she mentioned that she had found the Little Rascal (Rascal's inflatable dinghy) and was taking shelter in it.  At 11 AM, she messaged that she had finally been plucked off the beach by Shelly and Mike (from La Paz Yachts) who ventured out into the diminishing winds in their strong inflatable dinghy to try and help whoever they could find.  Finally, I knew Autumn was safe and sound and I breathed a big sigh of relief.  

Evidently, Autumn had heard other cruisers on the radio mention that they were putting out extra anchors once they were beached to ensure that they didn't get pulled out into deep water again when the wind shifted.  She had the extra anchor (a danforth) prepared and when she climbed through the forward hatch to set the backup anchor at around 2:40, the wind had swept her off the deck of the Rascal and into the water.  She briefly attempted to swim back towards the rascal, but the waves, wind, and current were too much for her and she ended up in the mangroves.  From there, she climbed up into a particularly stout one in an area that was comparatively protected and it was there that she weathered the worst of the storm.  In talking with her, it sounds like the biggest issue was the possibility of hypothermia, as she was soaked the entire time, winds were constantly whipping through, and she didn't have much in the way of clothes on.  She spent about 8 hours in the mangroves and on the beach before she was finally picked up and, by the end, she was totally exhausted.

The following morning was calm, and there happened to be a particularly high tide, perfect for refloating boats that were beached.  Everyone rallied around Autumn and out of the two dozen boats that were beached during the storm, the Rascal was the very first to be pulled off and back into the harbor.  Below are some pictures and video of the refloating process courtesy of Elizabeth on S/V Vivacia.

They used a process of pulling on the nose and tipping from the top of the mast to shimmy the boat back out into deeper water.  Tipping her helped break suction from the sand and also helped to expose a better surface to slide along as the tug was applied to the bow.  I'd really like to thank everyone who lent a hand to get the Rascal off the beach and also to the folks that helped take care of Autumn in the aftermath of the storm.  Everyone has been exceptionally friendly and helpful and this terrible storm would've been much more terrible without all of your generosity.  

It would seem impossible that the Rascal could get beached and pounded by hurricane force winds on her side without any damage, but that's essentially what happened.  Her exceptionally thick Dutch-built fiberglass hull, her watertight hatches, and her sturdy fittings all combined to protect her from the waves and the elements.  The only damage she sustained were some gouges to the fiberglass and a bent bow roller while she was being hauled off the beach.

Lots of destruction occurred to the roads and buildings around La Paz and Cabo and the airports didn't come out unscathed.  I was really eager to get back down to Autumn and the Rascal, but only military planes were authorized to land with humanitarian supplies and to help evacuate the sick and elderly.  I thought about the possibility of driving down, but reports said that the long highway that runs the length of the peninsula was washed out in several places with the likelihood of repairs taking weeks.  After jockeying back and forth between a few different airlines and flight cancellations, I finally got in on one of the first flights into La Paz last Friday night.  Autumn met me at the airport and I gave her a bear hug that would've crushed any mere mortal.  

We drove around town a bit in a car borrowed from a friend and I got to see a little bit of the destruction that occurred around town and to some of the boat yards.  There are still lots of downed signs and trees littering the streets more than a week later, but power has been restored to the vast majority of the city and telephone and internet is available most places as well.

Not everyone weathered the hurricane with as much luck as Rascal and I'm tremendously sad to share the news that three fellow cruisers died during the storm.  They were all great people and they seemed as well prepared as anyone else before the storm.  It is postulated that some of the boats that came adrift during the storm hit their boats, which subsequently lead to their sinking, but we may never know the ultimate cause.  Its important to note that none of those who died during the storm were found wearing life jackets.  While there are obviously lots of things that can go wrong on a boat, its always a good idea to have a life jacket on at the first sign of weather and especially during a hurricane. 

We've spent the last week dragging for anchors that were lost during the storm (we managed to recover our own as well as S/V Catalpa's)  and helping support the folks that are diving to recover personal items from the boats that sunk.  There have been lots of missions to recover beached boats at high tide and we're slowly but surely making progress.  We're planning to leave to head north towards Loreto and Guaymas in the next few days as salvage efforts slow down.

In the end, I'm feeling exceptionally lucky that Autumn wasn't injured, the Rascal came out with minimal scrapes, and that there wasn't more death and destruction to La Paz.  I've learned a lot through the whole experience and I'll definitely be better prepared the next time the Rascal is faced with a big storm.  Thanks again to everyone for all of your support and positive wishes over the last few weeks.  It has meant a lot to me and I can assure you the the voyage of the Rascal shall continue!

Over the course of the past 24 hours, the Baja peninsula has been hit with a major category 3 hurricane (125+mph), a tornado, and an earthquake.  The Rascal was anchored in La Paz, a sheltered harbor that has seen tropical storms before, but never a storm of this magnitude (only two other major hurricanes have hit the peninsula since they began to keep records in 1960).  Forecast models for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all initially predicted that Hurricane Odile would gradually weaken and move northwest, but each time an update was published, Odile strengthened and inched north towards Cabo and La Paz.  A friend (who was looking after the boat, while I was home in the states) rode out the storm at anchor in La Paz harbor until the high-test anchor chain broke loose early this morning, just before the eye moved over La Paz.  She managed to beach the Rascal and get onto land where she clung to mangroves through hurricane force winds and driving rain until she was eventually rescued around midday.  I'm happy to report that she is safe and uninjured, but several boats in the harbor seem to have sunk and several people are still missing.  The condition of the Rascal is unknown.  I’m working to get back to La Paz as soon as possible.  I'll share more information when it becomes available.

After one glorious week of sailing around in paradise, it was time to resupply, take a much-needed shower and dive into the second half of the trip.  After exploring to the south, we decided it was time to go north, and that's exactly where the wind blew us.  

We woke up to another warm, sunshiney day and moved the boat into the marina.  After a half hour standing under cool, fresh-water showers, we were both feeling rejuvenated and ready to get down to business.  We got a quick breakfast and went to an internet cafe to reconnect with the world and edit some pictures.  That accomplished, we realized that we ought to start resupplying before it got too hot to move around.  

We both agreed that we had made a glaring omission in stocking up for the first half of the adventure.  We had forgotten gin entirely.  I think most folks that've spent any time in the tropics would agree that there are few things more refreshing than a gin and tonic.  The gin is has a nice subtle bite to it, and the quinine in the tonic is, of course, great for treating malaria.  However, Mexico is a country of tequila and gin is hard to come by.  With this goal in mind, we set out on the town to find a well stocked liquor store that might have it.

Before such an industrious trip, we had to fill our bellies so we trundled off to the best fast food joint in town - Super Pollo.  Super Pollo is unlike anything we have in the states.  They have a big row of grills and rotisseries in the back and we immediately decided that we should have a whole grilled chicken.  Contrary to the American fast food model, there are beers readily available and we washed our chicken and salsa down with some ice cold Pacificos.  Scrumptious.  

During the first week, while we were lamenting our lack of gin, there was a memory that flashed across my cranium.  It was of a large liquor store, somewhere on a back street.  Surely they'd have gin, I thought.  But was it on Jalisco street or Revolucion?  Maybe it was over by the upholstery store?  Perhaps its near Ferre Mar?  I couldn't quite remember - but we set out across the town anyways, searching in each nook and crannie for the liquor store that came to me in my dream.  Eventually (after at least an hour of hoofing it around La Paz) we found it and got enough gin to sate our thirst for a full week.  Walking around town in the midday heat is quite exhausting and some mean looking thunderstorms were looming, so we stopped on the way back to boat at an enormous covered palapa style restaurant.   

As tradition would dictate, we ordered a few beers and sat down to look at the menu.  We were both in a bit of a daze from the heat and running to beat the rain, so we were having a really hard time deciding what we wanted.  The waiter came back multiple times asking if we were ready.  Eventually, in some jumbled spanish, I said, "Necesitamos veinte minutos para beber" (we need twenty minutes to drink).  That was the only thing I could spew out of my jumbled mind at the time, and we both immediately broke into laughter, realizing how completely absurd it was.  The waiter agreed, and let out a pretty hearty laugh himself.  Eventually we decided on a mixed seafood ceviche that was absolutely delicious.

That night, we went out on the town and drank in a couple of good dive bars and ate our fair share of street meat.  There is a woman (named Gina, pronounced gee-nah) a couple blocks from the marina that cooks on a little flat top cart in front of her house.  She offers up burritos, hot dogs, and hamburgers and typically opens at 7 or 8pm and cooks until 2 or 3 in the morning.  She has been my savior on many occasions and we've developed a bit of a bond over the course of the last few weeks.  In Spanish, hot dog would translate as "perrito caliente" and most people selling hot dogs on the streets advertise them as "perritos".  Gina, however, calls them "weenies" and wraps hers in bacon.  That night, we decided a traditional burrito wouldn't be enough to satiate us, and we both decided to get our burritos "con weenie".  Gina agreed that this was a great idea.  

Such a meal obviously swept us into a food coma and we awoke the next morning very well rested, if a big hungover.  We rallied and accomplished all the grocery and perishable shopping we needed to do and decided to have a little brunch.  We sashayed down to the beach and found the seafood vendor woman there in her little stand like always.  She sells anything the fisherman are catching that day, and she always has a big tub full of clams.  There is a special sort of clam down there called an "almeja chocolate" that has a very faint chocolately flavor if you close your eyes and taste real hard.  We got a dozen of them and ate them alive with a squeeze of lime and a dash of hot sauce.  Scrumptious, and just the way to overcome the lingering effects of our hangover.  

With that completed, all we needed to do was stock up on beer, and with a little mistranslation, we accidentally ended up buying twice as many as we were attempting to.  Whoops.  As luck would have it, we drank almost all of them on the sail out to Isla Espiritu Santo.  As we sailed deeper in the sea our conversation slowly got deeper over time, as well.  We covered a lot of ground, ranging from the existance of a higher power and afterlife to the ethics of the natural world.  

It was a Sunday, so none of the gas stations were open upon our departure, and I figured with the 10 gallons in the jerrycans and wind in the forecast, we ought to have plenty of gas to make it through the next week without a fill up.  The wind was very light when we started, so we fired up the engine to make Espiritu Santo before dark.  To ensure that we wouldn't run out of gas while motoring, we filled the tank from the jerrycans and motored north.  Ten minutes passed and I thought I heard a weird noise from the engine.  Another twenty minutes passed and the engines coughed.  Ten minutes later, the engine died.

Luckily for us, a fair wind had sprung up and we had a good anchorage within sight.  I kept my cool and we sailed up to a good spot, dropped the anchor, and backwinded the sails to set it.  We had caught a tuna on the sail in, so we promptly turned it into ceviche and decided to deal with the engine in the morning.  

Its obviously tough to tackle engine problems on an empty stomach, so the first order of business in the morning was bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches.  With a fully belly - I dove into the engine compartment and started checking off the possibilities.  I figured our engine difficulties were just from air introduced while refueling underway and I put some time into bleeding the fuel lines.  They seemed to have a fair amount of air bubbles, so I felt confident that I had found the culprit.  We fired up the engine and, low and behold, it roared to life.  I was feeling pretty damn good about my mechanic skills and we motored out of the shelter of the anchorage, and into the prevailing winds.  We cut the engine due to these fair winds and sailed for a couple of hours.  As we were getting closer to our anchorage, the wind started to die, and we fired it back up.  Five minutes later, we heard a cough, cough, sputter, sputter and we both looked at each other.  Maybe I hadn't solved our engine problems after all.  

I spent a bunch more time bleeding the fuel line and it wasn't seeming to help.  The engine would start and then die 10 or 15 seconds later.  Wind was light, so we were feeling a bit sketchy about being able to find a suitable anchorage under sail.  I dove down to check that the cooling water intake and the exhaust outlets weren't clogged our fouled and everything looked good.  Finally, I decided to bite the bullet and change the secondary fuel fliter.  This can be an arduous process, because one needs to refill the new filter with fuel and then do a lot of bleeding.  There wasn't much sediment in the primary filter, so I was skeptical that this was the problem, but lo and behold, the engine fired over on the first turn and ran like a champ for the rest of the afternoon.  

Such a stunning victory required a stout celebratory meal, so I went to work in the cast iron and started whipping up a really hearty pork green chile dish.  While it was simmering away down below, we both grabbed a book and started reading while we were cruising along.  We were both in the cockpit when all of a sudden one of the handlines we had been trailing started spinning out of control.  This is always an exciting time and we were both filled with adrenaline when we looked back and saw a monstrous Dorado take to the air.  "Dolphin!" we both yelled and the fight was on, with me wielding the weakest handline we had and Wade wielding the camera and the gaff.

We cut the engine to slow the boat and started the long process of fighting the mighty creature.  The one we had hooked never jumped again, but one of his fellows was feeling acrobatic and continued to jump around in the wake of the boat.  He took off on several long runs, and we payed out lots of line before we finally got him close to the boat.  He was swimming in all sorts of directions and we had to pass the boat around rigging lines and the Little Rascal several times before we finally got him aboard.

Finally, we hoisted him aboard and oohed and ahhed at his spectacular gold, green, and blue coloring.  He looked like a creature out of Jurassic Park and we couldn't believe how big and beautiful he was.  We complimented him for his valor, dispatched him, and then disassembled him into strips and steaks.  It was clear that we would have to table the chile for the time being and make this beautiful mahi mahi our main course for the night.  

But just as we resumed our course for San Francisco Island, we found that we were in for another surprise.  Like a rocket, the second handline took off and this time Wade was the first to get to it.  It sped off on a couple of blistering runs that had us wondering if he would break the line, but eventually he tired and we got him in to the boat.

It was a hell of a fish, but in light of all of the dorado we had in the ice box, we decided to send him back to the depths from whence he came.  We had seen thunderheads building to the southeast all day, and they were continuing towards us when we pulled into a glorious, pristine horseshoe shaped bay on the south side of Isla San Francisco.  We anchored alongside three ginormous megayachts in this idyllic cove and did some swimming around amongst the sea turtles that frequent the cove.  The big thunderboomers never made it to us, but they did make an excellent foreground for the sunset. The sushi rolls and fish tacos we made out of the dorado made for a perfect dinner to cap off an exciting day.  

But sadly, neither of us would get much sleep that night.  Just as night was falling, a mostrous swarm of tiny biting no-seeums descended upon us and ate us alive all night.  I don't think Wade slept a wink and as the next day dawned, we were both drenched in sweat, wrapped up in sheets to try and protect ourselves from the devilish creatures.  We rowed into shore with camera and fly rods in hand and set out to explore the island.  We immediately came upon a big, wet salt flat that was clearly the breeding ground for the hoard that dined upon us the night before.

We crossed over to a bay on the other side of the island and started throwing flies.  For whatever reason, nothing much was biting and we decided a tour of the geologic diversity of the island might be a more effective use of our morning.  

We climbed up atop the ridge and the views in all directions were absolutely breathtaking.  We couldn't believe how gorgeous our surroundings were and as we continued along the ridge, Wade decided to reenact some scenes from the li

As we got closer to the cove we anchored in, we looked down and to our surprise, a few new boats showed up while we were out rooting around.  One of the newcomers was so big that he had a garage in his stern that fit two jetskis and a full sized ski boat.  It was outfitted with treadmills and a hot tub on the roof, and even his dinghy was bigger than the entire Rascal.  We couldn't help but look down on the scene in awe.  

At the end of the last ridgeline, I told Wade to jog ahead and do some fishing while I acted as spotter from above.  Most of the beach fishing is sight fishing, so its pretty important to be able to see your prey.   I saw a bunch of baitfish break the water and a flash of greenish gold told me that it was a dorado for sure.  Wade fired a cast out to him and the big, golden beast followed it in right up to his feet, but never struck.  He kept working his way around the beach and all of a sudden I spotted six football-sided shadows working their way across the shallows.  I knew this type of schooling was typical of roosters and Wade sprinted across the beach to intercept them.  He landed his fly right out in front of them, and once again one chased the fly into the shallows, right up to his feet with his comb slicing through the water, but alas, he didn't want to bite either.  At least we were getting a better feeling for technique and timing.  

I picked up some sort of stomach bug in La Paz, and I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I headed back to the Rascal while Wade continued to work the bay for roosters.  Around noon, as we were walking along the beach, getting ready to depart, we ran into the architect from Mexico City who had been chartering the megayacht that was anchored in the harbor.  He was very down-to-earth and they were all there to celebrate his mothers 96th birthday.  

We knew we couldn't spend another night among the bugs of Isla San Francisco, so we set sail to the north with a fair wind at our stern.  We were both a bit sleepy and dazed, but the arrival of a dozen dolphins helped to jolt us out of our stupor.  They rode alongside us and dipped and whirled as the Rascal parted waves.  We decided to bust out the go-pros and managed to get a few shots of them from under water as they splashed and twirled in front of the bow.

About a half hour later, just as the excitement from the dolphins was subsiding, we spotted two whales swimming in the opposite direction down the channel, blowing as they passed.  It was definitely an action-packed day and we were both pretty exhausted by the time we reach the tiny fishing village of San Evaristo which was to be our anchorage for the night.  It was well protected from the south wind and we read our books and watched manta rays leaping out of the water as the sun set.  They do this, apparently, to remove barnacles growing on their undersides, but we both conjectured that they rather enjoy it as well.  We made an early night of it and decided to explore around the huts of the fishing village in the morning.  

My fever broke during the night and I felt pretty damn good when I woke up.  We put together a quick breakfast and rowed in to shore to walk the beach and see what all the pangas were up to.  Most of the houses were made of wood scraps with thatched roofs and each had a fishing panga out in front of it, beached with the tide.  There was one store in town, but it had nothing but dried food, canned goods, and warm juice.

A couple of weeks previously, I had heard in La Paz of a cruising boat that had wrecked during a daytime storm and the whole thing had been relayed back and forth on the radio for all to hear.  Everyone was ok, but it was pretty tragic to hear this guy's boat being battered to pieces, and the responses to his cries for help on the radio from La Paz.  The full account of the story is here, and we saw the remains of the boat sitting on the beach in San Evaristo.  

We pulled out of San Evaristo when we got back to the boat, and sailed across the channel to a long sandy beach we had been eyeing the day before.  Along the way, we saw a shark that was swimming along in our wake with its fin sticking menacingly out of the water as well as a few whales off in the distance.  The beach must've been three or four miles long and we saw several turtles and caught a handful of smaller fish, including a couple of trigger fish and an odd creature that looked like an oversized needlefish.   We even happened upon a small scorpion that scuttled across our path.  

In the afternoon we took fishing and snorkeling gear to shore and hung out in a shady cave reading and sorting flies. We snorkeled through a school of baitfish and managed to hook into two fish that were big enough to break off our flies.  It was tremendously hot out, so we spent much of the afternoon just relaxing in the calm water and looking across as big thunderstorms tumbled across the Sierra La Giganta Mountains.  We decided we better bail to our anchoraged and crossed back across the channel to a little nook we had noticed on the charts.  We were delighted to find another glorious sunset and a picturesque gravel beach with a black sandy bottom.  Above the beach was a mountainous scene that could've been out of Wyoming or Utah with big craggy rocks and thick growth up the drainage.  That night, we were also treated to a spectacular show of phosphorescence all around the boat and we jumped in to watch the creatures light up all around us. 

That morning we rowed the Little Rascal in to shore and explored the wreckage of some fishing huts that had once been built there.  A flood had clearly swept down from the mountains and destroyed them.  We hadn't made much distance in the previous few days, so our plan for the day was ambitious - we would sail out around the north side of Isla San Jose and try to make it to an island offshore from there that looked like it might've been good fishing.  On our way out, we crossed into a school of 50 or 60 dolphins with tiny baby dolphins learning to jump and play in the waves.  They seemed wary of us, and tailed away to resume hunting other fish by the time we got close.  

When we rounded the north side of the island, we found that the southern swell was much bigger and our anchoring options were slim until we got quite a ways to the south.  With this in mind, we abandoned the possibility of anchoring on the tiny island offshore and we started to make time to the south.   As we zipped along the shore of the island, we eventually got to a really odd looking stretch and noticed a few small coves on the north side of a small point.  They were all geologically different from the rest of the island and we pulled in to take a look.  What we found was absolutely beautiful.  One was white sandstone, the next was bright orange, and a third one was bright red.  There was also a limestone area with some big caves carved out and a glorious sandy beach sitting at the base of each of these fingers.  Each cove was just big enough for a boat to anchor in and we immediately dropped anchor and rowed to shore.  

We did a bunch of rock hopping and saw some neat tide pools, some crazy rock formations, and all the while we were surrounded by crystal clear turquoise water.  

It was getting quite hot again, so we decided to spend some time floating around in the surf and eventually we made our way back out to the Rascal to enjoy a few cocktails.  When we got back to the boat, we found a dozen bees buzzing around it.  "This is odd," we thought and there was no food out so we figured they'd eventually vacate.  Over time, another dozen showed up, and we decided it was time we put up a fight.  Out came the fly swatters and flip flops and we launched an offensive against these nosy bees.  We found that we were actually pretty good bee hunters and after five minutes of swatting there were perhaps only a half dozen left.  

We sat back to enjoy our drinks again, but all of a sudden, a bunch more arrived.  The bloodbath recommenced and we killed dozens and dozens and dozens of bees.  About a half hour into this bee slaughtering nightmare, we realized that we didn't stand a chance - there numbers were too great and they were clearly trying to relocate their nest to the Rascal.  Our only chance of survival would be to sail out beyond the point into the prevailing wind and waves and hope that the wind would help to displace them.  We started to do this when we each saw a sight that chilled us to the bone - the queen bee.  By this time, we had queued up some inspirational music, and with AC/DC as our soundtrack, we each struck out after the queen with reckless abandon.  Wade had been stung four or five times at this point, so the battle had clearly grown personal for him.  She managed to dodge a few well aimed swipes but was finally smote beneath his size 12 flip flop just as we rounded the point.  We both breathed a sigh of relief and we sailed in circles, doing our best to dispatch whatever bees remained.  In the end, the death toll was staggering.  Six stings for Wade, one sting for me, and an estimated two hundred dead bees littered around the decks of the Rascal.  It was a sad day, but we're happy to report that the Rascal came out victorious.

While we were out sailing in circles, we noticed a dark, ominous opening in the cliff wall a short distance down the shore.  We pulled back into a cove a quarter mile down from the scene of the attack, and brought a rope and some cocktails with us to do some more exploring.  The cave ended up being quite large, and luckily, we didn't need the rope.  

As the sun began to set, we went back out to the boat and started whipping up a dinner of refried bean and cheese tostadas.  It was growing dark when all of a sudden, I heard the whine of an outboard.  "That's odd," I thought and we both came up into the cockpit to see what might be coming our way.  It was a fishing panga with no lights pulling up to us and we both looked at each other in surprise.  "Hola!" we called out to them, but they continued motoring towards us with no response.  It seemed very suspicious that they would be coming right at nightfall and they certainly weren't acting friendly.  We both prepared and expected the worst.  Another couple hails of "Hola!" and "Como estas?" eventually elicited a response from them just as they reached the boat.  They grabbed onto the rascal to steady their boat and one of them said simply "Agua" (which means water).  They still seemed emotionless and with a hint of suspicion, I asked them in Spanish, "Do you need water?"  Wade had grabbed his knife as they were pulling up and he was clearly ready for some sort of fight.  They were silent for a bit, and eventually said "Si," but made no move to grab a container.  I asked him if he had anything to hold some water and eventually they slowly produced an old jerrycan, all the while offering no smiles or expressions of thanks.  We filled it up for them and a few more moments of silence ensued.  Eventually I started asking them questions about fishing and they grew more talkative.  They were from San Evaristo, they said, and they were fishing for a bunch of different species.  They showed us a portion of their catch and we talked back and forth about fishing techniques in Spanish for five or ten minutes.  They asked us a few questions about the sailboat and we asked them a few questions about their gear.  They mentioned a beach that should be good for roosterfish and eventually they coasted back into the night with their water.  We were a little rattled after the suspicious way in which they approached, but in the end we were reasonably satisfied that they were just run-of-the-mill pangeros that had run out of water.

We tucked all of the electronics away for the night just to be safe and did some stargazing before we called it a night.  We saw no more of these mystery fisherman the next day.

We decided we ought to try and round the south end of the island the next day, so we threw out trolling lines and started beating into the south wind.  We managed to catch a couple of tuna, but they were all pretty small.  At the beginning of this trip, I had bought a heavy-duty trolling rod that we rigged up with a huge lure and some monster hooks.  It hadn't caught a single thing the entire time, so we decided to switch it out for the small squid that were so productive on the handlines.  I set the drag and let it pay out.  After a couple of hours we heard a loud ZING, and line started paying out at a crazy pace.  We immediately grabbed the rod and went to set the hook, but when we gave it a tug, the resistance immediately dropped off.  We figured we had pulled it out of his mouth, but when we reeled it in, the truth immediately became clear.  A young tuna had hit the lure a while back and hadn't been heavy enough to pull line out with the drag setting.  We must've towed him for a while and something bigger and meaner (a marlin by the looks of the bite marks) had come in and tried to bite him in half.  The larger fish didn't end up getting hooked, so we were just left with the mangled body of the tuna to our credit.

FInally, we arrived at the cove the fisherman had mentioned and we did some walking and scouting for roosters.  We didn't manage to nab any, but the water was clear and the swimming was great!

The next morning we got up early and tried our luck again to no avail.  We did, however, end up with a glorious sunrise and a beautiful beach to walk around on.  

We soaked in the cool water for a while that morning and a puffer fish decided to swim up and nibble on my toe.  It was a weird sensation that freaked me out a bit and we decided to swing back to the boat and sail back towards Epiritu Santo.  

The wind was with us and we had a great sail to a nice secluded cove.  The visibility was great when we got there and we spent hours snorkling around and exploring the bay.  We did some reading, and drank a few cocktails that evening and we began to lament the approaching end of the trip.  Some summer sausage and onion pasta rounded out the evening and a rising west wind rocked the Rascal to sleep.  

We trailed a line after we were out of range of the island and we must've hit a school, because both handlines took off at once.  One of us was in the hammock and we only had a chance to grab one of the hand lines, the other jumped off the boat and into the sea.  We both swore and were disappointed as we retrieved the one line.  To our surprise, however, the second handline must've gotten tangled on the first after it jumped ship, and Wade managed to retrieve both lines at once!  Two fish with one stone!

The wind was quite calm that morning, so we were forced to motor and when we were about 15 miles from La Paz, the engine cut out.  It dawned on us both immediately that we were out of gas.  We had done more motoring than we had expected that week and we must've gone through all ten gallons.  Shucks.  We texted my brother via sat phone and he mentioned that we would have wind through the morning with a lull around midday.  We set a course for Balandra and the sailing was going well when all of a sudden things really started to blow.  It was turning into a little chubasco and it got up to 20-25 knots before we decided to heave-to.  We cursed my brother for giving us a nasty headwind instead of a lull and eventually set sail again after it died down.  We made it to Balandra late that afternoon, anchored under sail, and rowed to shore with a jerrycan in search of some diesel.  A kind family that was beaching there offered to give me a ride back towards town and I got a few gallons and hitch hiked back.  We threw them in the tank and decided to try and make for La Paz that night.

As we got close, the wind picked up again and we decided to dodge into Pichiligue cove and wait to enter till the morning.  There just happened to be a little restaurant there and we got our first cold beers in a week.  Delightful!  The following morning we motored back into a familiar slip at the marina and promptly showered off a week's accumulation of salt and grime.  It felt good to be back in civilization and we decided some breakfast at Super Burro was just the thing to celebrate with.  

We spent the afternoon uploading pictures and shopping for gifts to bring back for Wade's family.  We happened into a sign spray painted on the streets that afternoon that seemed to sum up the trip nicely.  It was a Joseph Conrad quote, and it read: "I thought it was an adventure and in reality it was life" 

"I thought it was an adventure and in reality it was life"