Category Archives: Cruising Life

The Bees Rule

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We were at anchor at Playa Bonanza on the back side of Isla Espiritu Santo having just come off a three night passage from Isla Isabella.  We were both ready for a rest.  Alas. Life can be unfair.

A sweet little Redside Blenny

I was below in the salon using the first cell service we’d had in a week; catching up on Facebook and the news, when, from on deck, Mike scared the pants just about off of me by bellowing out a loud, anguished “ARRGGHHUGG!”. I’m sure you are familiar with these kinds of screams. They are the kind that indicate the most foul mortal wounding. In the history of the Boyte-White family, there have been many occasions where I’ve been minding my own business, busy with a task,  only to be brutally interrupted by a loud, guttural cry from one or the other male members of the family. Honestly, I can think of 5 separate occasions without even trying. God only knows how many I’ve repressed so I don’t have to remember them. I accept this as my fate, a balancing of the scales of justice, my due for having put my own parents through this special kind of hell when I was growing up.

The men in my family have been, as they are referred to in medical circles, “frequent fliers”. These cries of terror are generally followed by a fast and expensive visit to the emergency room. When I am on the receiving end of a bellow of anguish, I am, to use a political word, triggered.

“MIKE!!” I screamed as I took the companionway ladder in one leap. “Oh my god what has he done? Has he cut himself? Is he currently missing a limb? Where is the nearest emergency facility? Is there anyone within radio distance?” These thoughts jockeyed for position as I levitated up the ladder. I met him coming around the front of the cockpit, pulling down his pants, all limbs and parts apparently in place and accounted for. No blood spattered anywhere. No arms held at a strange angle. Wait. What?

That’s right. He was pulling down his pants. My husband got a bee in his pants and it stung him on his hind end. That is all. Yes, the sting hurt. But it was the fact the insect was in his pants that did most of the damage. He bears no blame for his outcry. Mine would have been much worse had our positions been reversed. His look was a bit sheepish as I reached for the ice to put on his mortal injury. This was our third sting of the day, so I had it handy.

This was not the peaceful, restful anchorage we had longed for. No. It was not. This was the land of the bees, and it was a harbinger of the weeks to come, weeks we’d planned to enjoy going from anchorage to anchorage, snorkeling and making way north.

Abandoned hotel at Punta Chivato

The bees had shown up only a few hours after we set our anchor. They sent their scouts to report back to their friends: “YES! WE HAVE FOUND WATER, AMIGOS! COME IN FORCE TO THE BIG BLUE FLOATING ISLAND AND DRINK YOUR FILL TO COOL THE HIVE. PLEASE YOUR ALMIGHTY QUEEN!” I remember thinking to myself that maybe they would not go get their friends. Maybe these were not actually scouts sent to communicate with the hoards from the hive. Maybe we would truly be able to rest today. Maybe bees would not invade our cabin and make the boat hum with their tiny beating wings. Maybe they would not crawl over every surface and explore every crevice on the boat. Maybe they would not die by the hundreds in the soapy water in the sink, falling on their bubbly swords in service to their matriarch. Perhaps they would even stay out of the cockpit.

In a soothing moment of denial we called our daughter to have a nice talk and as we visited our hopes and dreams dissolved as the swarm descended on our boat. First a handful of bees, then a bowlful of bees, and finally we had literally thousands of bees flying around and crawling on every little thing they could land on. We had to hang up the phone. There was no way to concentrate on a conversation. We were too busy brushing the bees off of our person. Sighing greatly, we raised anchor to make good our escape.

Thanks for the water, sailors. Now give us your boat.

The struggle with bees is real here on the islands in Mexico. We are bee lovers, not bee haters. Still, our groove has been seriously impacted by our buzzing friends because there is great snorkeling at many of the islands and that’s what we love to do. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried to shower salt water off on the back deck with a million bees buzzing around you. One with nature, that’s us.

At our last anchorage, Isla San Marcos, the bees were not the docile almost domesticated insects we had encountered other places. These bees landed on us and crawled on us with impunity, seemingly marking us as their territory. All I can say to that is NO. At every single island anchorage we went to, we had about 1 day to enjoy ourselves before the bees found us. This is the literal truth. One day. After that we either had to become part of the hive, or we had to move along to another place. In order to survive the islands, we’d need wings. And possibly a stinger. At the very least we’d need to keep moving.

In case you were wondering, we did try to divert their attention; to deter them from taking over our space. We tried bowls of water on the deck. That encouraged more to come. We tried peppermint oil, tried by many other cruisers to some effect. Our boat smelled great. But the bees thought so, too. They landed all over it. We even tried putting sugar water on a part of the deck we didn’t need to access. They sure appreciated it, but they still came into the boat looking for more. Greedy bees. Many people close up their boats to keep bees out. But that doesn’t really work as they will find any way to get inside. And really, it’s just too hot for that. A closed up boat, even one with screens, is like a tomb. You need air circulation to survive inside.

Thus it is that I’m not all that sad that we’ve put Galapagos in Marina Real in San Carlos, Sonora for a few weeks and we’re flying back to the states to do some visiting with family. I remember last year when we put her on the hard for the summer and it felt like it was too soon, like there was so much more we wanted to do.

This year it’s different. It’s blessed hot here now. The sweat drips down our bodies constantly and this is no longer a novel experience. We have given up wearing clothing (which can be a serious problem if you forget to put clothes on when other boats are nearby).  You just cannot be in the water enough to stay cool, but I admit that showering in the altogether on the back of the boat is 10 minutes of pure bliss, as long as the bees haven’t joined you.

This fishing boat passed WAY too close to us on our brisk passage across to San Carlos. I was about to turn off, under full sail, when he finally adjusted course, paralleled us for a few minutes and waved, then passed in front of us at speed.

So we are currently in the marina, getting her ready to leave for awhile as planned, and not feeling particularly sorry about it at the moment, although I will miss the snorkeling.  I guess we need a break. We’re visiting our friends Curt and Lynn Brownlow in their air conditioned condo for a few days and it’s utter bliss. We’ll be back in the heat of August, we think, to take her further north into the boiling sea for the brunt of hurricane season. Maybe the bees are better on this side of the sea? There’s more moisture over here, so we’ll hold out hope. Our destination is Puerto Peñasco, above the historic hurricane zone. We’ll find a condo to rent with air conditioning and hunker down for a sweaty season in the boatyard. My birthday is in August. I’m thinking an air conditioner would be a welcome gift.

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.