MOVING ON....VIA ISLA ISABELA

Cruising is about being on the move.  Striking out for new places and new adventures.  In the last few months most of our Seattle friends with whom we came to Mexico have moved on.  No, not most of them.  All of them.

Odessa returned to Seattle, making an epic bash back up the west coast to Seattle in about 40 days, Ponderosa is leaving Wednesday, returning to San Diego and beyond, perhaps returning to Puget Sound in time for the Perry Rendevous in August.  Taking Flight and Bravo are working their way through Central America towards Panama.  Island Bound and Panta Rhei have made the leap across 3000 miles of open water to the islands of French Polynesia.

Meanwhile, S/V Grace, S/V meaning "Sailing Vessel", has been sailing Slip 09, Dock 9, of Marina La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. 

The crew of Grace have a reputation for slowly going nowhere.   We went nowhere, except out to eat, during the months of December, January, February, March and April.  But in May things are different.  May is our month not to go nowhere.  We are returning to Mar de Cortez for another summer.

First stop Mazatlan by way of Isla Isabela, a volconic island with a fresh water lake filling its now extinct caldera.  Isabela is a bird preserve, home to the stupidest bird on this planet, the world famous blue footed boobie.  I never thought we would go there, the boobie has no attraction for me, Isabela's anchorages are very exposed open roadsteads with rocky bottoms that have a propensity to trap anchors.  It also has an active fishery with fish nets everywhere.  It is not unheard of to wake up in the morning, after a night at anchor, to find yourself surrounded by nets.  Departures can be quite exciting.  First extract the anchor from the rocks, then wend your way through the labyrinth of nets. 

Our stop there with our good friends Anne and Andrew of Windsong was uneventful.  The seas were calm, the anchors came up and the fishermen had actually removed their nets early in the morning. 

Isla Isabela

Our buddy boat Windsong
Notice the float.  It is tied to our anchor
with a trip line to pull the anchor
out backwards should it get ensnarled in the rocks.

Fishermen retrieving their nets early in the morning.

We left Isabela about 11am and traveled overnight to Mazatlan.
.