The 18 mile run north was made mostly under sail with a 12 knot wind on our beam the entire way. There was another boat flying his spinnaker, tempting us to get ours out, but since we were already making a good 6.5 knots, we decided to just go with main and jib. The sailing the past few days has been wonderful.
After arriving and setting our anchor, Manuel, a local fisherman, motored over in his panga to hit us up for some gasoline. We agreed to give him a gallon of our precious fuel in trade for a Langosta the following morning. While we thought that there was a good chance that ole Manuel was a scam artist with a practiced line of getting free fuel from yatistas, we figured that he probably needed it more than us and who knows, we just might be eating fresh lobster for dinner tomorrow night.
The following day we put the dinghy in the water and made for the beach for a hike and exploration. Los Gatos is known for its red rock. It reminded us of Sedona. We had a lot of fun walking around and exploring. We took pictures of everything (you'll have to wait for wifi to see em).
Manana came and went and Manuel failed to show, but by mid afternoon we saw Manuel's panga making its way around the point. We met him on the beach with high hopes, only to be told that the langosta catch was poor and that it would be tomorrow before he could make good on his end of the trade. We told him we were pulling anchor at 9 AM and heading north, so he agreed to be here by 8 AM with a lobster. Alas, the following morning Manuel was no where to be seen, so off we went to our next stop, Agua Verde.
Agua Verde is true to its name. As we headed around the point into the bay we encountered emerald green waters and three lovely coves for anchoring. This is a small roadstead community which consists of a two small tiendas, a closed palapa restaurant and lots of goats which some local farmers use for making cheese. We opted for the southern anchorage as most of the swell and winds would be blocked by the land mass. Paul got the kayak out and did some exploration while I stayed on the boat and slept. Our neighbor came by in her kayak later that afternoon and filled us in on the situation in Puerto Escondido. With a forecasted "Norther" approaching, we decided it would be best to depart early morning and try to make our next stop before noon. Further exploration of Aqua Verde will have to wait until we make our trek south in a few weeks.
We departed with a minimal wind of about 9 kts and hoisted the sails expecting a pretty easy morning under sail. Tia was on deck napping, Louis was hanging out in the salon. No sooner was everything trimmed when the wind just started to crank up. It was pushing 22 kts off the beam. We thought that the "Norther" was kicking in a bit early. Tia leapt downstairs and onto the ditch bag, Louie grabbed a spot up against the salon seat cushion and Paul and I reefed down and sailed along comfortably doing 7kts for about an hour. Somewhere a switch was again thrown as all wind stopped. We were dead in the water with flat seas. This happened very suddenly. It turned out that the wind we had was not a "Norther" but the effects of winds tumbling down the face of the Sierra de la Giganta. We fired up the motor, shook out the reef and motored sailed the rest of the way into our hurricane hole.
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| There were all kinds of cool red rock at Los Gatos. |
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| More red rock. |
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| An arm shot with Talos IV in the background. |
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| Janet amongst the many varied colored rocks on shore at Los Gatos. |
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| We sailed in close to get a look at this sea cave just off from Ensenada la Ballena enroute to Agua Verde. |
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| Paul passed a bunch of goats taking a nap on a walk into town at Agua Verde. |
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| The local school house. |
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| The church. |
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| Typical Agua Verde home. Note the satellite dish and around back there were solar panels, which most of the homes had. Very progressive here in Agua Verde. |
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| Maria's tienda was closed so I had to walk up town to the other grocery store. |
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| This grocery store was opened, but they did'nt have what I was looking for. |
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| Pyramid Rock was just off from the boat. |
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| We sailed past Rocca Solitaria on our early morning departure out of Agua Verde. |
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