via satellite
We spent Thanksgiving anchored in Bahia Los Gatos, having arrived the day before from Isla San Francisco.
Los Gatos is another amazingly beautiful Baja anchorage. At each end of the crescent shaped bay there are massive rock formations, pink-red, striated and smooth like what you would seen in southern Utah. In between is a sandy beach with the towering Gigante mountains as a spectacular backdrop. Many pictures to come when we can get upload them.
Shortly after we arrived in Los Gatos we were greeted by Rob, who came by to invite us for drinks with his wife Nancy on board their boat Shindig. We ended up enjoying several hours of conversation and more than one bottle of wine. Rob and Nancy came down to the Sea of Cortez from the Bay Area in the 2012 Baja Ha-Ha and have had their boat based in La Paz ever since. They spend October to June cruising in Mexico and the summer "couch surfing" at their friends' houses back in the US. They provided an experienced perspective of a lifestyle that we want to learn more about.
By Thanksgiving morning, Shindig and the other two boats in the Los Gatos anchorage had left and we had the place all to ourselves. We hiked to the top of one of the rock formations and then around the other one to the next beach south of us. I scored a major find, spotting a turtle's shell lying in the sand which Renee is working on cleaning it up to be a keepsake from our trip. We followed our hike up with snorkeling another rock reef, this time without my shivers and cramps and with several types of rays.
I started off our Thanksgiving dinner by drinking my last bottle of Lagunitas IPA. After almost a month of drinking Mexican beer, it was absolutely delicious and I savored every sip. We cooked our "Pollo de Celebrar" and ate it with roast potatoes, mixed vegetables, mushrooms in escebeche and a can of cranberry sauce I found in our pantry when I was cleaning it out before we left. Dinner was accompanied by a 2008 Rafanelli zin. Coincidentally, the canned cranberry sauce had a 2008 "best used by" date. Both were delicious, although I would give a nod to the Raf which cellared a bit better than the cranberries. It will be a memorable Thanksgiving, distinct from the traditional family gathering on land in a familiar surroundings. It brought to mind another treasured Thanksgiving dinner memory, one with just my daughter Hannah and I on our boat Ariadne years ago, anchored in Ayala Cove off of Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.
While hurricane Sandra won't have any impact on us, another norther is building, so we decided to proceed directly to Puerto Escondido this morning, rather than battle higher winds and bigger seas getting there on Saturday. We arrived in the late afternoon and are snugly anchored with a couple of dozen other boats in this very large natural harbor. We'll stay here for quite a few days to wait out the weather, visit the nearby town of Loreto and get some more of the never ending boat maintenance/repairs/projects done.
