So, the plan was; stay at Ballandra one more night and have a fish fry with Rich and Cathy on Bella Brisa (assuming we could catch more of those delicious Sand Bass). Good plan, but the wind and sea Gods had different ideas. After an idyllic morning sipping coffee with our yogurt, granola and canteloupe, we decided we would kayak to the beach, climb the mountain and then fish for dinner in the afternoon. So…we kayaked to the beach, climbed the mountain and as we were on top, about got blown off by the North wind that developed. We rapidly moved back to the beach, and “survival” kayaked through two foot plus waves and 20 knots of wind back to Charisma. As we got there, Rich and Cathy along with several other boats were pulling anchor and heading back to La Paz. So… (as they say)…There we were! As we approached Charisma, she was bounding up and down in the waves and we had to get back aboard from our little inflatable kayaks. I won’t go through the details, but suffice to say we were both somewhat terrified as Charisma threatened to smash us as she went up a large wave while we trying to come alongside and get up the swim ladder. We finally got back on board and no bones were broken in the process. We bid adieu to Rich and Cathy via VHF, hoping to connect again sometime in the future. So now, we were in an untenable anchorage, yet needed someplace to stay the night before leaving for our Southbound journey tomorrow. We decided to sail out to Espiritu Santo. Once the anchor was up, we realized we actually had a very favorable wind angle. So we unfurled the jib, shut down the engine (after using it for only about ten minutes while pulling up the anchor) and sailed the ten miles out to Bahia San Gabriel on Espiritu Santo. Once there, we dropped anchor, deployed the kayak whereby Ann paddled about 300 yards into the beach (it’s very shallow and that’s as close as we could get) while I tried fishing for dinner. No luck on dinner, but Ann had a terrific ride to the beach and back. An awesome sunset with (of course, Charismas) and dinner and here we are! Now, we’re ready to depart tomorrow for our trip down to Mazatlan. It’s about 220 miles, will be a broad reach (I hope) and should take us from 40 to 50 hours (at between 4 and 6 knots average boat speed). In other words about two days pending wind. For any nautical types, the details are; Forecast wind: North, 15-20; Course 097 degrees magnetic; distance, 220 miles. We won’t quite go straight. For the first 30 miles or so, we’ll go more South through the Ceralvo Channel, then angle out across the Sea of Cortez. We’re thinking quesadillas with leftover chicken and mushrooms for lunch, if the wind/waves cooperate 😉