This is a little out of chronological order, but it's the first time I've had decent wi-fi to post the pictures.  So here's the pictoral version of the trip.  As noted in a previous post, we wanted to stay at Los Muertos a little longer, but a 20-25 knot Norther was forecast to blow for a few days from the direction we wanted to go.  So, to be able to stay an extra day and still get North, we decided to stay during the day, but go to sleep early and leave at 3AM so as to get into La Paz by around Noon, before the Norther started cranking up.  The strategy worked well.  Got up at 0300 and anchor up by 0330.  A warm moonlit night with stunning stars and few clouds escorted us North followed by a showy sunrise and soon thereafter, a Dorado on the line.

Post Script:  Should read; "Got him, almost".  Turned out my knot around his tail slipped when I lowered him over the side to wash him off and he slipped away into the depths.  Hard lesson, but resulted in my using a new, improved slip knot.  You'd think I'd know better!  No fish tacos this evening.

Ann saw an area on the mainsail where some stitching had abraded and come undone.  Needle and thread to the rescue!  Although the sewing machine hasn't come out yet, we've been planning some boat projects/creations including a remodeled bimini (to shield the sun when we're anchored) in the very near future.

A fantastic experience, we lucked into being at Los Muertos about when the sea turtles hatch.  At first as we were walking the beach, there was a mystery:  Sticks and screens were set up for who knows what purpose...

...then we noticed strange tracks in the sand...

...then we found out what this was all about!!  Baby Sea Turtles were hatching and the "shrines" were actually protecting the eggs from being trampled and from being dug up by the seagulls.

Love seeing the grandeur of huge sea mammals.  In this case, we were cruising North from Frailes to Muertos about 5 miles off Baja and I saw a whale in from of us.  He was just cruising South on the surface and I actually had to alter course a bit to miss hitting him.  We passed each other by about 30 yards.  He seemed completely unpurturbed by us.  I think it was a humpback.

Some sunrise and moonrise pictures at Los Muertos.  A beautiful bay.

Enjoying an easy day today. Went in to the resort on the beach. There's no one here, so we have the run of the place. It's easily as nice as what we've been to in Hawaii, but very isolated so very few people. Charisma is anchored about two hundred yards off the beach, so we came in for lunch. We were the only ones in the restaurant. Excellent fish tacos. Fish caught right off the point.

Going to be windy tomorrow, so our plan is to get up and leave at 0300, which should put us near La Paz (hopefully) before the stronger winds come in. Forecast is 15-25 in the afternoon from the North, which of course is where we want to go.
Had a big bonfire on the deserted beach last night with some of the other cruisers. There are about seven other boats tucked in here, all of whom we are now friends with. Nice. Some of the younger ones just stayed and slept on the beach, as it was at least 70 all night with no wind.

That's it for now. Hopefully will have some wifi in La Paz with which to post pictures.
See ya.

As promised by Bob in our last blog, I am going to take a
few moments and share my thoughts on cruising.
The first thing you will notice is that timelines are really not
important any more and thus this blog is probably a day later than you
expected!)

For those of you who like camping, we are camping on water
and moving camp with much less effort!
Put away the dishes, close the portholes and hatches, pull up the anchor
or release the lines and away we go! Quite pleasant. And I’ve taken advantage of a great area here in Los Cabos for morning runs!

I run over to the captured dolphin pens and try to encourage
them to escape. Apparently there is a dolphin training facility here.  Kind of sad.

But you will be surprised that there have only been two days
that we have not set an alarm! We need to get up to hear the weather reports which happen at 0730. But it gets you up at the best time of the day.  It is crisp and clean and beautiful. And this lifestyle has us going to bed early and sleeping very soundly. So nice to be
past the stress of preparing. Everyone in the other boats we meet has the same rushed prep stories. Fun to compare.

Cruising also means communicating with new friends on the
VHF.  I sound very official. Bob is worried that I may not need him so much anymore.  But he is safe, I can’t light the oven yet.
Yesterday I got Joan’s fabulous chocolate chip cookie recipe and set out to make the boat smell good! The oven is very tricky.  You have to sit and watch the temperature gauge hanging inside the door and constantly adjust the heat. I also found out that you only cook on the top shelf – first batch smelled burnt from the hammock (or so I heard from above). But I saved most of them and have a very successful second batch!

The cookies came in handy when we did our first entertaining
last night. Cruising means meeting lots of people with great stories.  And you know me, I’m digging for them. And I’m always comparing boats.  Charisma really stands out. We are always glad to have people come on board.

We watched many boats come and go today.  The largest being a mega-yacht complete with a helicopter on board and a motor boat that stores away.  Another cruiser told me he left his helicopter at home because he couldn’t fit his helicopter AND his bikes.  Bob left his helicopter at the ranch because the radio frequency wouldn’t work down here.  (I could just imagine him delivering messages to other boats with his toy helicopter).

We leave Puerto Los Cabos tomorrow to parts that I have
never seen.  Several of our new friends have moved ahead and we look forward to seeing them and exploring new spots.  This cruising life is hard stuff but I think I can adjust!

But we do miss our families and friends (and pets-Hi Tiger, Marley, Eve and Grover ).  Know that we think of you often and fondly. Keep the blog comments coming as sometimes we aren’t getting Facebook or email.

One more comment – friends last night looked at Bob and
exclaimed, “we were looking through all of our pictures thus far and just realized: you're Tinkerbell!  The wig didn’t disguise you enough!” Hard to hide in some crowds!

Oh – another lesson learned at Puerto Los Cabos Marina: never throw out a single flip flop.  A friend knocked one of his flip flops off the dock while doing some work on his boat.  His smart first mate convinced him
not to toss out the other one.  They dinghyed over to join us for dinner.  As we walked to dinner, there, next to the garbage can was his missing flip flop.  It had floated all the way across the marina and someone had fished it out and put it on the dock!

I think I forgot to note how we did in the Baja Ha Ha event itself.  Well (drum roll...), second place.  Now we have a red ribbon to go with last years' first place blue ribbon.  Yay!