February 18, 2016 - Isla Partida

Our 40nm trip to Isla Partida was wonderful, nice and calm.  We did however start the trip off with a huge seaweed mess on the anchor as we pulled it in to leave our secure anchorage.  It must have taken 10-15 minutes to free our anchor of the huge mess.  As we approached the bay at Isla Partida, a high speed Mexican Navy boat (40’-50’) turned abruptly to come near us, and then did a few high speed donuts nearby.  We thought for sure they would stop and board us but they pulled out of their loops and motored away from us.  Soon after anchoring, a panga came speeding into the bay with 5 men in it.   They came right up to Adagio and asked for medicine for a headache and then took off after we gave them some acetaminophen.  They thanked us in Spanish and then returned to what appeared to be either fishing or shell harvesting.  We saw only large commercial fishing boats and very few at that on the journey over to Isla Partida.  No other cruising boats have been in sight now for days, and we are alone in the anchorage.  It is a bit chilly outside this afternoon at 66 degrees with a 10-15 knot breeze.  The water temp is about 60 degrees in most places.  Too chilly for any real water time.

We believe that we are now back in the Pacific Time Zone.  It’s been an amazingly complex issue dealing with the correct time for a given location during the past year and a half.  Not only are there a few different time zones involved in our journey, there is also the issue of daylight savings time.  Mexico does not change to (or away from) daylight savings on the same dates as the US.  There have been many times along this journey, particularly when we do not have an internet connection, where determining the accurate local time has been a serious challenge.  We have been wrong more than once!

We took a walk up one of the hills on our one full day there.  It is a really barren island.  There is cactus though and Kevin was very brave when one attached itself to his leg and we spent a few minutes trying to remove it.  Other than the one issue, it was a nice walk and a great view.  We then ran the dinghy close to the reef where we observed birds and crabs. 

The bay on Isla Partida

Kevin had an encounter with a cactus on our hike.  It was very painful pulling
it off of his leg.  He says he will never live anywhere there are cactus!

Hiking the ridge trail.

It was very steep and we rolled some large rocks down all the way to the water.

the ridge trail.

Nice view from atop Isla Partida.  Adagio anchored on the right.

The two nights here were nice and calm.  The first night we did not sleep too well as there were hundreds, if not thousands of birds chattering all night.  Not the two types of gulls we hear day after day and not the pelicans, but some other bird flying throughout the night.  At sunrise all would be quiet again.  The second night we knew what to expect and slept better.  Our evenings are still spent with playing the card game “Hearts” as well as many rounds of “Boggle”.  The kids are now into the TV show “LOST” (which we have on DVD) so we usually get an episode or two in as well.  Some of the show is creepy or not kid friendly so we are always trying to keep our remember when something not good for the kids might come up so we can fast forward through those sections. 

 

Cindy often is our dinghy line handler.  Tying and untying as needed.
Our solar panels are harvesting a lot of free electricity every day.

Kevin hanging out in Zappa's favorite chair.
Judging his leg position, Kevin appears to be imitating Zappa
as well.

Cindy in the other chair in our salon, imitating Kevin.

Boobies on a cliff wall.

There were a lot of these red crabs on the cliff walls next to the water.

We need to give a big THANKS to Mark Dalton who is sending us weather forecasts every day to our satellite phone.  This area has no cell coverage and our SSB is still not really operational so having this is critical to our decisions and movement.  THANK YOU SO MUCH!  We are not sure what we would do without these daily forecasts!