Jan 21,and 22,  2013, Sunday, Puerto Ballena, Isla Espiritu Santo, Sea of Cortez, BCS



Our first anchorage On Isla Espirito Santo was Puerto Ballena.  Clear water, beautiful red rock cliffs, one other boat at anchor, no sign of habitation on shore.  The entire island is a national park, part of a World Heritage Site. After being devastated by pearl fisherman, sport fishermen and japanese trawlers, the Sea of Cortez is finally being allowed to regenerate.  Alan is reading The Sea of Cortez by Steinbeck and it is fascinating to be in the same places that he talks about.

The most fascinating feature of this cove is the faces in the rock cliffs.  The soft red rock has split and crumbled away leaving caves and vertical lines that gave the effect of giant faces on the rock, much like a forest from an Arthur Rackham illustration.  Unfortunately the picture does not do it justice but if you look closely to the right you can make out a contorted mouth with the rest of the face above.  In the late afternoon sun the entire cliff was lined with these wonderful grotesque faces.

After lunch we unfolded the dingy and went off exploring the cove.  The water is warm and shallow, clear and teaming with life.  The sandy bottom was covered with black speckles which I thought at first were pebbles, although they did not look quite right.  Eventually I reached down and grabbed a small clump.  Whatever they were they were not rocks but something living, maybe fish eggs.  Alan kept looking for sea slugs since Steinbeck had talked about finding hundreds of them but we did not see any.  Maybe the black things were sea slug eggs.  We are getting quite attached to our folding boat, which we have name George, and the very quiet solar charged electric motor.  It is lovely to be able to drift along slowly and quietly, turning it back on with just a twist of the wrist without having to pull a starter cable and breath fumes.

Back at the boat, we spent a lot of time going through files and paperwork, organizing and tossing.  Since Alan had never had time to really go through his files to see what he needed, I had just brought along anything that looked important.  We ended up getting rid of half of it.  It has been shredded into tiny pieces to be fed to the fish sometime when we are far out at sea.  Little by little things are starting to fit and settle into their places.