**This post was written and supposed to have been posted a few days after Thanksgiving. But apparently it did not. So, I’m posting it now.**
Our plan was to hangout in La Paz for thanksgiving but decided we were getting a little tired of town. We hauled up the anchor and left the day before Thanksgiving.
We had not taken on any fuel since we left San Diego, so we fill up on the way out of La Paz at a marina called Costa Baja which has a Pemex fuel dock. Pemex is a Mexican chain of gas stations. For reason’s unknown to us, our credit card from Bank of America does not work at Pemex gas stations. Works everywhere else. This we did not find out until we had already filled up our two diesel tanks with 50 gallons of fuel.
Luckily there was an cajero automatico (ATM) just a short bit away at a resort. I got a ride from a guy in a golf cart there and back. And because I’m a dumbass and forgot my card in the machine, got another ride there and back again. Unfortunately, the machine had (for security reasons) kept my card. GAH!
At least I got the pesos I needed to pay for the fuel.
Instead of going to the anchorage we had planned on going to, we went to a closer anchorage just a few miles away (Bahia Falsa) and spent the night there. The next morning, I jumped in the dinghy and hauled ass back to the resort/marina to see if they had been able to contact the bank in charge of the ATM to get my card back.
They had!
However, the ATM guys showed up an hour before I did and retrieved and cut up my card. GAAAHHH!!
I called the bank and got a new card in the mail. (Jason & Julia make sure you grab that from Ang before you come down in a few weeks)
With all that taken care of, I got back to the boat and we headed north to an anchorage on Isla Espiritu del Santos called Caleta Partida.
The anchorage is beautiful. Red rock hills and cliffs surround the anchorage with white sand beaches covering half of the shore line. Crystal clear water. All kinds of cactus and desert type shit everywhere.
Our friends boat, Loukia, was anchored in the bay when we got there so we invited them over for thanksgiving dinner. Tawn had cooked up an awesome T-day meal on the sail there. We had all the fix’ns, with the exception of turkey. We could not find one small enough, so she stuffed and cooked a chicken. It was a big chicken. Our friends are Canadians, I’m pretty sure they don’t even know the tradition of Turkeys on Thanksgiving anyway. It all worked out.
We spent the next few days dinghy exploring, playing bocce ball on the beach with another boat in the bay. Got some really good advice on how to spot and harvest scallops in the area! That is on tap for tomorrow if we can get unlazy enough to dig out the scuba gear. We might just go snorkeling/spear fishing instead.
Think we are gonna head a little further north in a day or two to a place called Isla San Francisco, or not…who knows.
Bonus Material: We saw a sea turtle skeleton on the beach yesterday. This is something I have never considered before. I, for some reason, never really thought about turtles having a skeleton. So there’s that.
So how do you harvest scallops – I really wanna know. Or conversely I could just come down, and you could show me. ;)