A Holy Spirit

We’re at Islas Espiritu Santo, which means;  Islands of the Holy Spirit.  There’s no question; you can feel a spirit here.  From the moment we motored into the bay at Bahia San Gabriel, there was a palpable feeling that this place was different.  From the amazing earthen colors of baked red, ochre, sea blue, coral turquoise, and cactus green, we knew immediately we were in a different place than we’ve been so far in this trip.

On the way here from La Paz, we caught a Wahoo-first of that kind of fish we’ve seen.  A beautiful fish with some serious teeth.  We’re considering making some ceviche tomorrow with this fish.  After Geoff got him filleted and the decks cleaned up, he let the hand-line back out just to straighten it out so he could coil it properly and BAM, hooked the biggest Dorado we’ve yet seen.  Since we have enough fish on board, we decided to let the Dorado go and shook him off the hook.  Good fish Karma.

We anchored in Bahia San Gabriel with only two other boats.  It’s really nice to be away from the Ha-Ha fleet many of whom are still in La Paz.  On this second part of the voyage, we will likely be the only boat in most of the anchorages we visit, now that the race rally is done and most of the boats continue south toward mainland Mexico and parts beyond.

Dinner was as usual, delicious as well as creative.  Geoff “invented” something to make use of our stores.  Sauteed cabbage (one left that we’ve been stripping leaves from to keep it from going bad), grilled yams that have voyaged with us from San Francisco, ancho peppers from the local Mercado in La Paz and grilled “tuna things” (we’re not sure yet what these fish were) that we caught a few days ago and have kept on ice.  Amazing how it plated so well.  A whole grilled fish on a bed of sautéed cabbage with the grilled yams and grilled peppers with melted cheese (I did the grilling and clean up and Geoff was the Master Chef).  We have been eating some amazing meals courtesy of Geoff and his culinary creativity (more below).

My next goal is to get him out of the hammock that he conveniently settled into while I was doing the dishes (our goals here in this simple life are very modest); so I can enjoy the stars and moon.  Rum might be part of the problem here.  It’s Cuban Rum, so that’s OK.

(The next day, 11.19: OK, so the last two sentences above were caused by the Charisma’s before dinner (Geoff’s comment: “Make them strong, I only want to drink one”.  Of course I obliged), wine with dinner and then shots of Cuban Rum after dinner.  After reading them over today, I thought I’d leave them in as evidence of the evening’s activities)

Today (11.19.10 and 24degrees 26minutes North, 110degrees 24minutes West) we left San Gabriel around 0900 and headed further up the island to a spot called Caleta el Candelero.

A short 5 miles trip, so we left the dinghy in the water and towed it up the beautiful coastline.  If you flooded the Grand Canyon and then sailed in it, you have some idea of how spectacular this area is. Adding to the experience was the aroma of chopped onions, bell peppers and jalapeño peppers wafting up through the hatch as Geoff was preparing the Wahoo ceviche.  As he filleted the fish, he would toss bits of raw fish up to me at the helm.  Delicious!  A very pale, almost translucent flesh and a mild buttery flavor.  As we found out later, it made a most excellent dish marinated in the pepper/onion/lime marinade.  A bonus is that it will now keep for 3 or 4 days.

Upon turning into this spectacular bay, we both commented at the same time that we’d like to stay here a couple days.  It just does not get any more beautiful than this spot.  The bay is about π mile by π mile, shallow, mostly only 20 feel deep, all on a white sand bottom.  On the furthest inland side there is a stunning beach.  On the other two sides vertical walls of burnt umber and reddish colored rock rise a couple hundred feet, topped with ridges lined with cactus.  In the very center of the bay is the candelaro or “candlestick”.  It’s a large rock, about 100 yards, by fifty yards that juts a hundred feet or so out of the sandy bottom.  The sandy bottom and the absolutely clear shallow water and cloudless blue sky result in a pale turquoise color on which Charisma just seems to be suspended.  We can see Charisma’s and the dinghy’s shadow on the sandy bottom as well as fish swimming under the boat.  Did some swimming before lunch and saw the usual array of tropical fish, some puffer fish, a skate and some starfish.  Time for a siesta now after eating the delicious Wahoo ceviche, a cheese quesadilla topped with avocado and a cerveza.  More later.

A spiritual place indeed.

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