Finally! After trying three tries, (once with Cliff and Leslynn, and once yesterday), we finally found an arroyo that wasn’t so steep we couldn’t climb up. This one came up out of the Southern cove of Ensenda Grande. It was an all day event-we left Charisma around 1000 and didn’t get back until 1600 or so, but we made it up and back. Well worth it too. Beautiful scenery and on the other side a sheer cliff several hundred feet high looking down on the Eastern side of the Sea of Cortez. One the way back to Charisma via the dinghy, we stopped and rowed inside of a sea cave. It was only about 20 feet in, but fun to row in-it was deep, you couldn’t see the bottom-then get out and sit on the inner wall. Back to Charisma-just in time to get ready for sunset-Ann found a fun new hobby. She has adopted the pucker-fish (actually called a balloon fish, which is a member of the puffer family, but after eating her lime yesterday, he’s now the “pucker” fish). He in turn has adopted the kayak which is tied right next to the cockpit. He stays under it until Ann throws a tidbit, then out he comes to nibble. His preference so far; tortilla chips, although he will nibble on anything tossed over the side. Ann giggles hysterically every time she drops something and he ambles out. Tomorrow-leftover canned spinach that we need to get rid of. As I was preparing our Charisma’s, the manta rays started jumping. They do that around sunset for some unknown reason and tonight we had the show about 30 yards off the stern. I snapped a pretty good pic that I’ll post when we have the bandwidth. They are so fun to watch. The come flying (literally) out of the water waving their wings as if they could actually keep on flying, then hit their apex and drop into the water. They they do a belly flop, and sound like a shotgun blast. POP! The show lasted about half an hour and was over. But, this is Baja and that’s not all-during the show a big sea turtle decided he needed to get from one side of the cove to the other, so in the middle of the manta ray jumping was a cruising sea turtle. It was a big one too. The head was the size of an otter head. Also, this morning we had fun watching stingrays on the bottom underneath the boat. The water’s clear and we’re in about 17 feet, so we pour a cup of coffee and go on deck to see what swims by. This morning it was a family of stingrays. A good reminder to shuffle our feet when we come in to the beach on the dinghy.

Finally, made it to the other side of Partida

Dramatic views on the other side.

The arroyo up and over the island was just beautiful

They keep trying and trying to fly...

Here's our "Pucker" fish eating some tortilla chips after sunset.