We dropped anchor at the stroke of midnight under the watchful presence of Volcano Barceno. Sailing under a full moon the sky was bright enough for us to feel comfortable anchoring at night, considering the cove is wide open with no hazards. Still we crept carefully forward, the island pale as a ghost, all colors of grey and white in the moonlight. It was like approaching a lunar mountain and I turned to Mike and said, “This place is giving me the spook! It’s like a ghost island. ” Gliding to a stop in 30 feet of water we dropped anchor and felt it set, finally here at this place we had been dreaming of visiting since last year.

This morning we awoke to water crisp and clear as blue crystal against the grey monolith of the volcano and a beach with sand the rich brown color of mink. From the boat the sand looks silky soft but that may just be wishful thinking. It’s stunning here. Stark and wild, the land raw with its newness. This is a young island. A great crowd of elegant and serious Masked Boobies has taken residence just above the lava flow. Frigate birds and Tropic birds share space with both Brown and the occasional Blue Footed Booby. But the Masked Boobies steal the show here, fine black and white plumage surrounding a yellow beak and piercing eyes. Among Boobies, the Masked Boobie is the most refined.

Mike snorkeled around the boat today and barely missed swimming with a giant manta ray making way through the anchorage. I saw it from my shark lookout on deck and pointed it out but it disappeared before long. (I generally keep an eye out for sharks in a new place. None here yet. ) Tomorrow is another day and we plan to snorkel the point where the rocks look terribly inviting and interesting. We are sure to see some wonderful animals.

There is another boat here and we chatted with them this evening. They are also on their way to Hawaii but are on a fast catamaran so we may leave together but they will quickly outpace us. Still it’s nice to have people in this wild anchorage. Both of us will be here until the winds fill in for Hawaii. No hurry on my end. I could spend some time here.

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

In a 24 hour period our distance made good is about 105 miles. We are now sailing close winded which certainly isn't Galapagos' best point of sail but we are further south than we would like to be and are trying to claw our way north a bit.

Back in February BC (Before Covid) we applied for a permit to visit the Revillagigedos, a small archipelago about three hundred miles south and west of Cabo San Lucas. These islands are renowned for their diving and snorkeling and we were looking forward to swimming with the giant manta rays that hang out here. But like many best laid plans of late, the islands were closed to boats on the very day we picked up our park permit. Alejandro, the park coordinator was apologetic but there was nothing he could do, except...

Alejandro granted us permission to visit isla San Benedicto, one of the smaller islands in the group, for a few days as we make our way to hawaii. We can't go ashore of course but at least we can rest a bit and snorkle off the boat. If the winds will allow it, we are about two days way from the anchorage.

Despite heeling a little more than is comfortable, things are going well. The first nights of the passage is always a little shaky as we adjust to different sleep schedules but even that was pretty easy. We had a waxing moon till 4AM and then the milky way provided a beautiful light after moonset.

A few seconds after spotting a pod of dolphins something took the rapala lure I had trolling behind the boat. Whatever hit took almost the whole spool of line before I could slow it down. Luckily that tired him out and most of the fight was gone by the time we brought a nice yellow fin tuna to the boat.

We have the process of landing and cleaning fish down to a nice little ballet, complicated only slightly by the fact that were heeled over and bouncing. After thanking the tuna for his service, I dispatched and fileted him whi le melissa brought up cool water and made space in the freezer. The decks were bloody but I am happy to report that none of the blood was mine. We now have enough tuna for three or four days. The only downside to catching larger fish is that now I won't be able to fish for a few more days. Besides being delicious, fish are interesting, beautiful and a lot of fun to fight but I prefer to eat what we catch and so will wait till we have more room in the freezer.

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

Today it occured to me that Easter is a perfect holiday for a pandemic.

It’s not lost on us that right now much of the world, increasingly including Mexico, is living in a kind of purgatory between times. The world as we know it has gone, and with it many plans for the future, our feelings of safe knowledge of how things will be, our jobs, our illusions of security and good health…all gone with the virus. We drift around in a shadowy nether world that is neither here nor there, not knowing what will be and longing for what was. The days can feel dark indeed, and the nights long and filled with fretful sleeplessness as we worry and worry about what the future holds.

If we let ourselves, we can begin feeling hopeless. These most difficult times are when hope is the very most important feeling we can have.

And that’s why I love Easter. Whether you are a Christian or not doesn’t matter when it comes to a story of a man rising up from the dead to live again; a man who was entombed behind rock; his life finished; over with, who came back to life. It’s not necessary to be a biblical literalist when you think of this story. If you get lost in whether this story is literally true you miss the entire point. That point is, in a nutshell, that new life comes from death and that even when faced with our darkest moments, we should cling as strongly to our hope for the future as the limpet clings to the rocks in a stormy sea. We should live in the firm knowlege that we shall rise again.

Through this, and many other archetypal stories that reflect the tapestry of human experience, we learn that only through death can life be renewed. In order for great changes to take place, something must give way, must die. A new phoenix arises from the ashes of its own death. A lotus blooms from the rotten vegetation, dead on the bottom of the pond. People survive debilitating illness only to reinvent their lives and find new meaning in them. Life after death is a pattern that fills our known universe. The metaphors are limitless.

Long before Christianity people celebrated the renewal of life in the spring, the fecundity of animals, the fertility of fields; the beginnings of a new year. Spring filled people with hope after a long, dark, cold winter where the earth looked all but dead. The pagans saw what looked like dead landscapes, cold and dark, the sun low in the sky for months as though it could desert them forever. And then, at the equinox of spring, the earth began to warm. Color returned. Plants broke through the soil. The whole earth has arisen from what looks like certain death, a process every gardener still celebrates. A rebirth is certainly worth celebrating, even as we suffer through the process of change.

And so it will be with us. As a people we walk in fear through the valley of our own shadow of death right now; our own dark domain. And yet the story of Easter gives us hope and we should take it and hold onto it firmly; never letting it go. We should see the light that is present on the other side of this netherworld that is neither here nor there; this time of waiting. And we should wait hopefully and expectantly.

May all the blessings of the earth and spirit be yours this Easter. May you suffer with grace. May you have patience, forgiveness, and compassion for yourself and others. May you keep this historic time in perspective as you walk most tenderly through your own netherworld. May you do good in the world, because it needs goodness. And most of all, may you be overcome with a peace that passes your understanding and claim it for your own.