Author Archives: Melissa

The Sweet Spot

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Back in the Sea of Cortez, we are finally finding our groove. Yeah, it’s been awhile since we felt this way. We are in a nice routine of relaxing over breakfast in the morning, then getting our snorkeling gear on and spending a few hours exploring reefs. Hot afternoons are spent below in the relative cool of the cabin, eating late lunch and examining the photos we took that day. We play our version of Exotic Fish Bingo. I just love sitting down with our field guides and a batch of photos fresh from the camera! We are such nerds. I always feel a little light headed and giddy when I discover I’ve seen a new fish.

“Look, Honey! I think this is a Glossy Blenny! I’m calling it! I’m marking it down!”.

“Oh yeah? Well I’ll see your Glossy Blenny and raise you one Zebra Moray Eel! Who’s winning now?”

I absolutely love this part of cruising. Even on a bad day, a day of snorkeling is better than just about anything except maybe French Toast.

My work station. It feels a little like being in school and having homework that you love.

One of our favorite snorkeling sites is the bay of San Juanico. Huge pinnacle rocks standing in the north part of the bay offer refuge to myriads of fish and other salty beings, offering hours of snorkel play. Most boats tend to anchor up near those rocks, protected from most wind and swell. This year we decided to explore the southern half of Bahia San Juanico. Imposing rocky sandstone and volcanic guardians stand over the entrance to the southern most anchorage in the bay. Under the sea these rocks are completely encrusted with hard and soft corals, sea fans, anemones, and tiny fish. The colors are true to the spirit of Mexico: bright pinks, purples, greens, reds, oranges and yellows pop out from the more muted tones of the rocks and sand. It’s a psychedelic visual feast and I have trouble tearing myself away from the rocks; there is so much to see.

Rocky guardians  where the great snorkeling is found.

Yes, the month of June is definitely the sweet spot here. The weather is heating up, but that means the water is heating up, getting clearer, and the sargasso weed is dying off, exposing the bottom and its creatures beneath it. The nights are cool enough to sleep. Alas, that will not last forever as summer approaches. Temperatures of 98-100F are predicted next week. So for now we are enjoying our time.

This deluge photos show the true, unaltered colors under the Sea of Cortez. Can you blame us for wanting to hang out by the rocks?

Orange cup coral

Those sea fans!

What are these white feathery things? They are everywhere.

More sea fans.

Let’s take a break and talk about our cunning plans for the coming months. We’ve had so much flexibility it’s almost like we didn’t have a plan, cunning or otherwise. But we do have goals. They involve a trip to see Mike’s mom in Tennessee, a trip north to Washington to see our family there sometime in the near future, and a visit from Andrew and Jill in October. In the short term we are crossing over to San Carlos to visit the Brownlows from S/V Slow Motion before they leave for the summer. We’ll retrieve our car over there and hopefully it will still run after sitting in the lot since December. We are still making decisions about the timing for a haulout in Puerto Peñasco and how to get both our car and our boat there at the same time. We plan to leave the boat in Marina Real, San Carlos, for the few weeks we are gone to Tennessee. We think it will be safe from tropical storms there. Right now we have so many balls in the air we are kind of waiting for some to fall into place naturally.

Back to the soothing world underwater now because part of the stress of cruising is having a ton of goals but no solid plans. It’s a blessing and a curse. That can be said of many things.

Oh, and there’s a good possibility of a Pacific Crossing next year. Lots of things need to fall into place and there needs to be no interference from the Universe for that to happen. We are practicing non-attachment to outcome on that because at this point it’s a goal, not a plan. We throw ourselves on the mercy of the Universe and its ways and work our end of the agreement to make it happen.

I need a guide book to invertebrates. See the nudibranch?

He’s called a Mexican Barnacle Blenny, but I call him cute! So many of these little guys!

Redside Blenny

Not a great quality, but here’s a Carmine Triplefin (I think) for you. Along with his friend the barnacle blenny.

Currently at Bahia Santo Domingo, we travel today back into Bahia Concepcion to our favorite spot at Playa el Burro. Here’s what we saw there last year. Will we see another one? 

FYI, I’m using a fairly inexpensive Olympus Tough underwater camera. I’ve been pretty happy with it, considering it’s pricepoint and how easy it is to use. I actually like it for carrying around daily. If we make this Pacific Crossing thing happen, we’ll buy another one for Michael. He’s been using his old Nikon Coolpix underwater camera and the quality of the photos with this Olympus is much, much better.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 22a.

 

No Words

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There are literally no words that adequately describe that feeling when you slip into the cool water at the end of a long day and realize a ‘bucket list’ experience is unfolding around you. Awesome? It’s overused. Fantastic? Trite. Thrill of a lifetime? Yawn. I’m not even going to try.

We had sailed from Isla San Fransisco over to San Evaristo and dropped anchor as the sun was starting to get low in the sky. The water looked tempting so I got my snorkel gear on and slipped into the sea for a refreshing swim. Underwater it seemed a little darker than I thought it should be based on what I had observed from the deck of Galapagos. Anchored by some tall rocks to the west, I thought maybe the sun was already casting shade onto the water near the boat. I was wrong.

As I swam toward the stern of the boat  I realized that what I had thought was the shadow of rocky cliffs was actually moving. And it was coming toward me. The shadow was huge, dark, and undulating and my adrenaline gave a big shout out to my brain. “Shit! What the hell is that?”. There’s that brief moment of almost-terror when you are faced with something as yet unidentified under the water. Especially big stuff. Big dark stuff.

As it happens I did not get eaten by a great kraken. Instead  I got a good 45 minutes swimming with hundreds of Mobula rays! And even better, Mike saw them, grabbed his snorkel and got in, too. So we both spent a surreal almost-hour swimming with these graceful creatures who couldn’t have cared less they were sharing their sea with us. I had my camera and even though the water had a lot of particulate and the sun was low in the sky, I got some acceptable, even spooky, images to help us remember this very best of evenings. Shock and awe, folks. Shock and bloody awe.

This one has a Remora riding along.

Spoooooky Mobulas!

I’m calling this Outer Space Mobulas.

Formation Mobulas. 

More spooky Mobulas

While the Mobulas were the star of the show, here are a few more photos from San Evaristo and also from Isla San Fransisco, where I finally saw Conger Eels! Known as Cortez Garden Eels, these were another species for my Sea of Cortez Underwater Wildlife Bingo card. Take a look at those faces!

How fish look underwater at dusk.

Isla San Fransisco, Conger Eel

Those faces!

Mike and the Half Beaks at Isla San Fransisco

Resident Sea Turtle, Isla San Fransisco.

S/V Galapagos, Standing by on Channel 22a; back up in the Sea of Cortez where the weather is fine, the humidity is lower,  and the snorkeling is way better than the Pacific Coast. Making our way north to Puerto Peñasco and still deciding our plan for the next year.

Muddy Waters

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“Galapagos, Galapagos, Dragon Fly”
At the wheel, Mike answered the radio. We were in Barre de Navidad, between the entrance and the anchorage in the lagoon here.
“Dragon Fly, this is Galapagos.”
“Hey, how’s your day going?”, Jay on S/V Dragonly said. Cruisers. They are so droll.

See that really skinny part that says it’s 16 feet deep? Yeah it’s REALLY skinny.

Jay could see us from his position in the anchorage. We were stuck on one of the many sandbars that lurk beneath the surface of the water near the unmarked channel between the entrance to this area and the anchorage. Le sigh. A good laugh was had by all and we made a new friend. The tide was coming in, so we waited about 15 minutes and then our trusty Beta Marine engine, Hiram, powered us off. We’ve come a LONG way in the two years we’ve been cruising, to be able to laugh this off.

No harm done and having checked that off our cruiser’s list (Apparently we are now members of the Sand Bar Club. I hope that comes with some benefits.) we got settled in the anchorage and looked around. The thing about lagoons, as we’ve learned,  is that they are shallow and have mud banks abounding at low tide. And you know what that means? No, it does not mean we will get stuck on the mud again on our way out of this anchorage. We have a GPS track to follow now, and we have the lay of the land, or at least, the water.  It means great bird watching!

Bird watching to me is as fishing is to other folks. I can sit around in the dinghy and watch and photograph birds all day long. It’s generally a solitary endeavor because I don’t know anyone who wants to be bored silly waiting for me to call it a day and go home. Anyhoo, I was excited to be in a lagoon with easy access to large flocks of wading birds. I could see them in the distance at the head of the lagoon and I took my binoculars out for a quick look.

Scanning the far distant mud I could see many tall, white birds. Cool, I thought. Lots of Egrets, Ibis, and probably a number of different Herons and smaller birds with pokey bills. I was going to have a great game of ‘identify that bird’. But WAIT! Was that a flash of pink? WHAAATTT? Could it be??? Was that a group of Roseate Spoonbills? We were too far away to be absolutely sure, and I couldn’t swear my eyes were not lying to me, but heart pumping wildly,  I decided then and there I would be doing a ‘Grand Explore’ of the surrounding area in my quest to see and photograph a large pink bird with a bill shaped like my favorite eating utensil. Exotic Bird Bingo was back on the table! I began to like this place right away.

Later that night we were gathered on S/V Dragonfly with a few other cruisers having a good time just visiting and comparing stories. You know how cruisers are. We just chew the fat forever. Just as the sun was getting low I saw a flock of low flying birds skimming the surface of the water. I’m sure I completely insulted the women I was talking to when my jaw hit the floor and I wheeled around to get a better look. Black Skimmers!! Holy toledo, I was in heaven. Why was no one else jumping out of their seats to get a look? Why did my new friends look confusedly at one another and shrug? Did they not realize what they were seeing here?  I had not seen Black Skimmers since we lived in Biloxi, MS as a newly married couple.

Sure, maybe I was overly excited. Or maybe not. Skimmers are very cool birds. We have a large woodblock painting of Black Skimmers that has been hanging in our home for 37 years. We bought it from the artist in Gulfport, MS way back in our first year of marriage. It was the first piece of artwork we bought together and back then it was a pretty big expense. We both still love it. To see these magnificent, graceful birds with their comical beaks skimming the water actually brought a tear to the old sailing eye. The Grand Explore was definitely on!

Just skimming along for fish.

The thing about ‘Grand Explores’ is that these are the times when I am literally so excited about what I’m about to see or do that I lose sight of the fact that I could get myself into a ‘situation’, as it were. Whatever. What could possibly happen? Let’s go!

Knowing the water to be very shallow out by the birds, I decided on the paddle board as my vessel of choice. I can sit on it and paddle it like a kayak. I put my stuff in my waterproof bag and set off in the direction of the mud.

The tide was starting to come in and it made paddling down to the head of the lagoon really easy. Pulling up next to the flats at the mouth of the small river, the current slowly carried my paddle board through the shallow water along the mud. It was the stuff of dreams for an avid bird watcher. I just sat on the board, snapping away. Finally, there were the Skimmers, congregating with Royal Terns, squatting on the mud in a large flock. HEAVEN!! Look at their terrific beaks! And the Terns with their Einstein shock of black feathers on their heads!

I wished I had brought a small anchor to keep my paddle board in one place, but even so I spent maybe an hour watching and photographing the Black Skimmers, Reddish Egrets, Marbled Godwits, Little Blue Herons, Anhingas, and countless other little wading birds I’d have fun identifying later. It was like a city full of birds, all busy poking around in the mud. But no Roseate Spoonbill. Had my eyes been lying after all?

I was having trouble keeping the paddle board from drifting onto the mudflat and I didn’t want to put my feet down because GROSS, so after awhile I paddled over to the mangroves along the edge of the lagoon and started back to the anchorage. Maybe I’d come back another day with an anchor.

Suddenly a large bird flew up out of the mangroves and came in my direction, flying toward the mud flat. I saw pink. And as my brain registered my heart’s dream of the Roseate Spoonbill, it soared almost overhead. I grabbed my camera and rapidly fired off a few shots. Recall I was sitting on a paddle board. The photos didn’t go that well but I didn’t fall off and also at least there is proof that this glorious bird flew in my general direction. I watched him as he landed on the mud, back where I had been. Damn it! This ‘Explore’ wasn’t grand enough. I needed more.

Fuzzy, but proof!

Back at Galapagos I loaded up the new old Avon dinghy, now affectionately known to me as ‘The Family Truckster’. Slinging my waterproof bag with cellphone, assorted cameras, assorted binoculars and a water bottle into the bottom of the dinghy I announced my Spoonbill sighting to Mike and shoved off.  I was prepared with a long stick for fending off, and half of a kayak paddle, plus my dinghy anchor. Maybe I actually got up on a plane as I powered over the water to the flats. Who could tell? There was a big pink bird out there to see and I become single-minded in such circumstances.

Approaching what I knew to be the shallows, which were still too far away from the mud for me but that’s what a long shaft on the dinghy engine will get you, I threw out the anchor and tied it off, waited to be sure it set, then relaxed onto the forgiving hypalon tube for a long and satisfying birdwatch. It was the happiest I’ve been since we left Isla Isabella. There they were: literally hundreds of birds all congregating, stuffing their faces with small skittering things that live in the mud. And there was my precious Spoonbill!

I only wish he had been closer!

He swung his bill back and forth in the quest for his evening meal, ruffled his feathers, preened and showed off his large, well developed gams. He bathed in the muddy water. He was magnificent. I could hardly take my eyes off of him.

I don’t know how long I sat there comfortably on the pontoon observing and clicking away taking photos. At some point I noticed an overall change in the birds’ behavior. Where they had been spread out over the mud, a city of individuals, they began to cluster together in species groups.  White Ibis began taking off in small groups of 3 and 4 birds, flying off to the mangrove trees, the end to their busy day.  Skimmers took flight for their evening forage. The sun’s rays were long as it headed behind the hill to the west.

White Ibis going to settle in for the evening.

Filled with the bluster of success, viewing the world through a long lens and a pair of binoculars, I had failed to notice that the wind had picked up considerably and that my anchor had actually been slowly but surely oozing toward the mud flat. Taking stock of my nearby surroundings I realized the dinghy was sitting in 6 inches of water and the wind and little waves clearly wanted to ground me. Soon I would be on the mud. Merde. It was time to go home.

I got out my long stick and began poking into the mud, fending off and trying to push the inflatable into the wind and waves into deeper water. You know, these inflatable dinghies have a lot of windage to them. It was no bueno. A few yards behind me, an American White Pelican sat on his muddy spot, eyeing my progress. The Pelican was not getting further away. He looked me in the eye then looked away, clearly disapproving.

I got out the half of the kayak paddle and tried desperately to paddle to freedom. Paddle on the right. Paddle on the left. Hahahaha! I’m sure by now the pelican was giving low chuckles. Unfortunately the wind was blowing too hard for me to hear him. But I witnessed him shaking his head at me and knew he was right. This would never do.

Here he is, the lone White Pelican on this mudflat, coming in for a landing close by the dinghy.

Gathering up the anchor I decided to try to kedge off. This is a term used to describe placing an anchor in deeper water, getting it set, then using it to pull your boat off whatever land its stuck on. I stood up in the boat, gave the anchor a little swing, David twirling his slingshot against Goliath, and tossed it hard, out into the lagoon. Slowly, carefully, I began pulling the boat forward, inch by inch. Or. So. I . Thought. I heard a sound behind me and turned to see the pelican, closer than ever, throwing back his head and clacking his beak in the air; his pelican way of laughing, I’m sure. The wind and waves were definitely winning this one.

Ugh. There was nothing for it. I was going to have to get out of the boat and walk it into the deeper water. In case you were wondering why I had not already done this, I had been asidulously avoiding just such a fate. The water here is not inviting even a little bit. It’s filled with murk and the color is brown because it’s part of the river bar. And there are so many things that live in this lagoon! Things that splash, unseen things that ripple the water surface, things that roil in a ropy kind of way that seems reptilian, possibly stingrays, fish I don’t know how to identify, definitely crabs, probably crocodiles. This Jurassic lagoon is primitive, like someplace the Kraken would choose to give birth to all the baby Krakens.

Considering that I was now thinking I could get eaten by the Lagoon Monster, I decided this would be a good time to let Michael know what was happening and that I loved him; you know… just in case. I pulled out my phone and discovered he had been watching me through binoculars. (Of COURSE he had. He knows me all too well.)  Only two minutes before he had texted me, “Everything OK out there?”. I texted that I might be stuck and might have to wait the tide out. Or I might have to get out and push the boat into deeper water, something harder than it sounded.  No sense in him worrying. Besides, I had the dinghy and engine. How was he going to come riding to the rescue? On a paddle board? My knight in swim shorts.

I poked the mud with my poking stick to dislodge any lurking creatures, you know, just to give them fair warning of my lumbering presence and put myself at their mercy. “Hey, all you creatures, I’m getting in and my skin is tender and delicate! Go for broke!” Gingerly placing my feet on the muck, I did not, as I had feared, sink to my knees in the sticky stuff. Nothing skittered across my bare feet. I felt no stingray’s wrath. Just very slippery, kind of firmish mud that squished up between my toes. I decided to not think too hard about that.

Mud-skating, I tried to pull the boat along with me to the deeper water. The wind pushed, I slid little by little. I checked the pelican. He nodded pleasantly, almost encouragingly. I was making slow headway but I found it hard to control the boat in the wind. It kept wanting to go sideways. It was cumbersome and heavy, not at all like the Portland Pudgy. You know, the dinghy with oars. The one nestled on our foredeck.

“Oh please don’t let anything run over my foot. Please don’t let there be stingrays. Please don’t let a crab pinch me. Please don’t let the Kraken babies be hungry for human blood or the Creature from the Black Lagoon loom large over me. Please don’t let me fall into this disgusting water.”. Then I fell into that water. Damn it, that mud was slippery as hell. But given all the other options of bad things happening, falling into 12 inches of water wasn’t so bad. I mean people pay good money to be covered in the kind of mud that now clung to my legs.

I was back on my feet mighty quick and I began to feel a righteous indignation. How dare this lagoon try to trap me on the mud! Was I going to let this stupid lagoon get the better of me? I could be spending the last rays of the sun photographing my beloved pink Roseate Spoonbill; his rosy plumage glowing in the light of dusk, gently spooning the mud in search of small tasty bits. But NOOOOO! Instead I had to be slipping along the mud searching for deeper water, invoking every god on my side and all the angels as well to keep me safe from whatever could be lurking. I mean, even the locals don’t get in this water!

As it is wont to do, my anger gave me strength. I grabbed the stern and boldly pushed forth, daring the Kraken to breech, kicking out sideways on occasion just to let any lurking creatures know I meant business, was probably bigger than them, and was definitely angrier. Soon I was in water to my thighs. I wouldn’t be lying to say I leaped into the boat and pulled the starter on the engine in one well-timed swoop. Adrenaline. The fuel of champions. It started on the first pull, kicked up some of that nasty mud, and I roared away home. Victorious! Huzzah!

The sun was just going down by the time I got back to Galapagos. Mike was on the paddle board (!!) already, paddling to the rescue. I’m almost sorry I managed it alone because it would have been too fun to see him paddling out there coming to get me. Almost. My adrenaline was riding high. I was possibly irrational about that.

The dinghy and my person were filthy with lagoon mud and Mike had been understandably concerned but BY GOD I SAW THOSE BIRDS AND I HAVE THE PHOTOS TO PROVE IT. Score two points on Exotic Bird Bingo!

Next time I might just take the Pudgy out there with the oars. It’s a great place to row and I’m pretty sure I can find that Spoonbill and maybe even some of his friends.

Gosh, if only I could have been closer to him!

We might allow this to be as far south as we get this season. Next season is up for grabs but we are considering the possibility of the Galapagos Islands and the South Pacific. We need some good snorkeling. We might have to go that far to get it.

Until next time, S/V Galapagos, standing by on Channel 22a.