Success! We launched one of our kayaks today and Ann successfully did two circuits around our cove without incident. As told by her; “I really scared a couple of crabs who weren’t expecting me to come from the sea!” It’s two hours later and she hasn’t stopped smiling yet. I can tell we’re going to enjoy them a lot. While Ann was frolicking, I dove the zinc on the prop shaft. I’ve been concerned it might be ready to fall off, but it looked fine. I spent some time cleaning the bottom, then when I got out looked down and there was a little puffer fish poking his head at the dive ladder as if he wanted to come up and play. Later, when Ann threw her lime overboard (the one in the Charisma and yes, Lisa, she eats it to avoid scurvy), our little puffer fish came out from under the boat and sampled it. You could almost see his face pucker, so we might have to call him a “pucker fish”. Anyway, he seems to be our pet fish now. Not a lot to report today. We went for a hike up one of the arroyos and it turned out to be more of a climb than a hike. We ended up a couple hundred feet up the hill sitting in a cave eating lunch. No trail, just a lot of climbing. When we got back down we looked at the map again and found the trail is the next cove over. Oops. OK, so now we have something to do tomorrow 😉 I’m cooking up some chicken and sautéed cabbage (chop, then sauté in butter really slowly for a long time to carmelize) to go with our cabbage salad with Jicama. Cabbage and Jicama last a really long time so they’re going to be staples on our voyage. Good thing we have a lot of ways to cook them-well, the cabbage, anyway. From Ann – I just want to repeat that the maiden voyage of the kayak was without incident! I went ashore and came back and circled the cove again! I even tested getting back in the kayak from the water and again — success!!! We are really going to enjoy these kayaks! And I just checked on it, happily tied to the side of Charisma waiting to play again tomorrow! Thanks so much Marily and Tom!!! FYI – Bob was filming my test ride just in case I wasn’t as graceful as I was! And our hike today – really bouldering! Thank God for our walking sticks! Can’t wait to see how easy the real trail up to the top is tomorrow!

Addendum: Thanks Jerry for the info on the duplicate blog. The first time I tried to send, I got a really slow connection and disconnected, but I guess, too late. So it went again when I finally got a “speedy” connection. Sending via shortwave is a bit of an art. You have to hit the right frequency and the right time of day (usually night) to “bounce” the signal off the ionosphere. Sometimes it has too much interference and thus a slow connection. Lately I’ve been sending via the server in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Sometimes I get Texas though. Go figure! I’ll try and fix it when we’re in La Paz for resupply in a few days. We’ll hit the Bagel Store-they have a great wireless connection, great bagels and more importantly, they will grind some of their great coffee for us! The coffee in the grocery stores is terrible.

Even Bob can fit in the kayak

A brave new world....

Ann heading off to look for flying Manta Rays

And she found them! (click to see larger image)