Sunday 2nd August 2015 - about to leave San Carlos to explore Sea of Cortez
I'm writing this from the Embarcadero in Marina San Carlos, where I just indulged, unusually, in a lovely full breakfast in company with a lot of Mexican families, down with their children on holiday. They make frequent day-trips out on the charter boats here, with their return around sunset made clear by lively music, often to the accompaniment of the entire boatload of people joining in the songs, whose words they all seem to know perfectly! For Mexicans, men and women equally, I believe life without frequent singing and dancing would be unthinkable, they love both so much.
After a lot of boatwork, despite the present hot and humid conditions, we're about to get away sailing - it will be great to be at sea once more and away from the dock! Project for today is to inflate my dinghy to check for no leaks, hopefully, and also confirm my little outboard is working OK. I'm hoping to anchor a lot in some of the many lovely anchorages in the Sea of Cortez, especially over on the Baja (west) side of the Sea - lots to explore and enjoy, while keeping a careful eye on weather, in order to avoid any hurricanes that might threaten - none at present!
Temperatures are above 100F/38C regularly over the middle of the day - and don't drop down much overnight, so my new fans are constantly in good use! There's very little wind except most afternoons when an onshore breeze, sometimes very strong, gets up for just a couple of hours, before we're back to a flat calm, making for lovely reflections at night!
I'll need to fuel up, there's so little wind to rely on for sailing - but distances between possible anchorages are not far, so I should have plenty for the next few weeks. My solar panels have been putting plenty into the batteries - fans and LED lights take very little power. The main problem comes when I start using my SSB/HF radio - transmitting takes a lot of power, unlike receiving, so my little genset will come in handy to top up when needed for emailing or voice contact with radio friends. There's no Internet out at Sea so my Pactor modem for emailing and weatherfaxes via my radio and computer will be made good use of.
Any good photos I take will have to wait to be posted - there's only very occasional Internet access onshore since the Sea of Cortez has very few villages along its coastline.
Bye for now..... Hasta la vista...!