Trinda's sister (Binda and Larry) came for 2 1/2 weeks. It was fun. We
took them to San Marcus, Conception Bay and Santa Rosalia.

We decided that they should be allowed the experience of provisioning
in Mexico. We headed for LEY in Guaymas, by bus. Shopping was OK. They
noticed that most (ALL) the labels were in Spanish. The directions on
the packages are even in Spanish! We did manage to find enough to eat
for the 2 ½ weeks. In fact it looked enough for 6 weeks. We got through
the checkout stand and then they noticed that we had more than all of
us could carry, so we found a taxi. After paying $350 pesos ($40 US)
for the airport taxi, they were a little nervous. We got him down to
$120 pesos though, and then realized that we all four could not fit
into the taxi with the groceries! Trinda and Binda finally decided
to take the bus back. Trinda also wanted to make another stop at a
different store in San Carlos on the way.

Larry and I got to the dinghy dock and start unloading all these
bags. The good folks on the Tequila Sheila, a local Mexican charter
boat, helped gather all the bags and carry them down to the dinghy. It
only took three trips to the boat to get it all out there! Trinda and
Binda showed up with a little more and we were off.

The plan was to head up to Tiburon and across to Bahia Los Angeles,
then down the other side to Conception and back.  It was mid-afternoon
by now, so I thought we might just go the 2 miles out to Martini Cove
for the first night. Maybe do a little snorkeling. Wrong! There were
already two boats there and no room for a third our size. We went on
around looking at Catch 22 beach. It had a swell rolling in, so we
went on up to Bahia San Pedro.

After a nights sleep, a little swimming and fishing, we realized that
we really didn't have time to make the whole BLA-Conception loop. We
opted for just a straight across shot to Isla San Marcus and see what
happened next.

This was our 6th crossing and all the others had been dead calm, so
we left at 8 PM thinking of a dawn anchor at San Marcus. We had not
setup the jack lines, gotten the harness out, closed the hatches or
anything. On the way across, the weather turned to sh*t and we had
problems. The wind built to a steady 30 with gusts to 35. The seas
built to about 6' with an occasional 8 footer on the forward quarter. We
were motor sailing with the wind about 50 degrees off the bow.

Binda decided to sleep the first shift, so she climbed into the
Vee-berth. About an hour after the waves came up we heard her
yelling. She had lain there and become so sea sick that she couldn't
climb out of the berth! Trinda helped her out and up to the cockpit,
where she "only felt miserable", for the next several hours.

About midnight the autopilot stopped working again. Seems that any time
I would rather not have to steer, Auto wants a break too! It must have
overheated due to trying to correct for every wave.

Since I didn't expect the waves, I had not closed all the windows
below. Some water started coming in the salon so I closed most of the
windows. But the wind and waves were coming over the bow, so I didn't
close the hatch over the aft cabin. Of course, just minutes later
we took a big wave. Trinda announced in a loud tone that she could
smell smoke and see something below. When I rushed below to see where
the smoke was coming from, I asked Trinda to take the wheel. As she
stepped around the wheel, a wave hit and knocked her off balance. She
flew across the cockpit, hit her head on the jib-sheet wench, slid
on down to the walkway, bruising her arm and shoulder and started out
through the lifeline gate. Her sister grabbed her dress and kept her
from going overboard. She immediately had a goose egg the size of a
plum. Quite exciting, to say the least for 2 AM! She barely managed to
get back up and steer for the next 20 minutes while I evaluated the fire
danger. Water had come in over the bed and got everything wet. It got
Trinda's portable DVD player and into a 110 volt outlet, which caught
fire. The fuse did NOT blow, but the inverter shutdown with an error. I
shut the rest of the 110 volt off till I could find the real problem
and relieved Trinda. She felt pretty bad. She went below and lay on
the settee with the lea-cloth snapped up. Later I found the manul and
discovered it was an overload. All I had to do was reset the inverter.

By the time we got close to Isla Tortuga, about 15 miles from Santa
Rosalia, we were all tired. The books say there are no anchorages there.
I decided to rest in the lee of the island regardless. The chart is
not very good, so I approached slowly. As I was getting close, I saw a
light. I decided that it must be a small pier. It must have been used
for mining or something. I was thrilled, as I could see the cliff face
behind the light and was able to judge the distance to shore. Just as
we got close enough to recognize white tee shirts milling around the
light, they turned it off! I was pissed! I thought they were doing
it on purpose. Using the radar and depth finder, we chanced a little
closer toward where I remembered the light.

At 90 feet I dropped the anchor thinking we must be about 600 feet
from the shore. After all, we routinely anchored in 50 to 100 feet
of water in Canada. It held, I set the anchor alarm and Larry and I
were to 'rest' in the cockpit, while Trinda and Binda went below to
sleep. I awoke just before dawn to see the 'dock' turn out to actually
be two squid fishing pongas, which were just now heading out for Santa
Rosalia. The light was used to reactivate the luminous plastic of the
squid lures! We rested on till about 10, then headed for El Viejo,
the south end of San Marcus. It was another 2 hours of bashing, but
the in-laws said it's not so bad when you can see the waves coming.

The anchorage was calm, although the wind kept up all day. The next
morning was not too bad. I sent Larry and Binda out fishing in the
dinghy. They didn't catch much on the lures I had, but noticed lots
of baitfish. Once back they ask if there was any way to get some of
them. I pulled out the cast net that brother Donnie had given me. We
managed to get a bucket full of the 2-inch minnows. This was all that
it took. Binda caught 5 frying sized rock fish in just a few minutes. We
had Bard Grunts and Parges for supper.

The next morning, about daybreak, I heard a terrific clatter on deck
and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Binda with those
minnows again! By 6:30 she had 5 more little fish for breakfast.

We decided to go on down to Santispac for a few days. We trolled along
the way and caught a dorado and a skipjack. Binda and Larry were really
getting into this fishing thing now. We went snorkeling and gathering in
Conception. Clams and scallops over spaghetti for supper, more seafood.

We hitchhiked to Mulage shopping then took a taxi back. The taxi driver
offered an all day trip to Santa Rosalia to see the museums and shop
some more. Only $60 US, a pretty good deal.  We took him up on it. He
was to pick us up at 9:00 AM on Friday. That gave us two more days to
snorkel, fish from the boat and dinghy.

Friday morning came and he was only 5 minutes late. Not even enough
to get nervous about. It was an hour to Santa Rosalia. We went to
the two museums and the Iffel Church. Then we passed George of C'est
se Bon on the street! I suggested we stop at the marina for a beer
in the 'Palapa of Knowledge'. (That's where you can find an expert
on anything. Ya know how cruisers are after a few beers!) Sapphire
was there too. We had a nice visit and then off for lunch and more
shopping. Binda found a little tiny fishing pole. She had to have it
because the trolling poles I have, "don't have any feel for the little
fish"! About 3:00 we headed back for Santispac. As far as stories go,
not an exciting day, but sometimes its nice for things to just go right.

The visibility was not that great in Conception, about 5 feet, so the
next morning we headed for Punta Chavato. There was about 5 knots of
breeze on the stern, so when they started teasing me about my 'motor
boat' I got out the spinnaker. We were making almost 5 knots without
the motor for almost an hour. The wind died back some and Binda started
in on the "Are we there yet?" and "How fast are we going again?" so
I started the motor again so we could make trolling speed.

Fishing was not that good from the boat in Chavato, so the next morning
we headed for the north end of San Marcus. We took the long way around
for more fishing. It had a good start. As we were pulling up anchor,
Binda caught a Scorpion Fish and another Pargie. On the way they
caught Dorado, Skipjack and Sierra Mackerel. Shortly after we anchored,
there were Triggerfish and Bard Grunts for a total of seven kinds of
fish in one day! Larry and Binda were in fishermen's heaven!

While Larry was trying to catch some more Triggerfish for Trinda's
sausage recipe, he thought he got a whale. After struggling several
minutes, up comes this 4 foot long Morea Eel. Now talk about how to
get a fish off the hook! This guy had REAL teeth!

There are some caves along the beach here, so we took the dinghy over
exploring. The water was really clear, maybe 25 feet visability. We
could see lots of fish in the water, so guess what? No we didn't go
fishing, we got the snorkels and the spear guns! That's my kind of
fishing. Larry was a little slow to get in the water. He was afraid
the eel form yesterday might recognize him!

The snorkeling was really good, lots of different kinds of fish, and
really big ones (that's maybe a 30 pound grouper to me) too, but the
spear gun missed every time. We did see another eel, but he and Larry
didn't recognize each other thank goodness.

Since we had just gotten our scuba certifications, Trinda wanted to
take Larry and Binda under water few minutes. We loaded up the dinghy
and headed for a sheltered beach, slowly! There's not much freeboard
left in our little dinghy with four adults and two full sets of scuba
gear including 40 pounds of lead weights. I wasn't sure how much I would
need to get us all down at the same time. I had planned for us to take
them down on our alternate air regulators, so we would more or less be
buddy breathing. But no, even with all our weights I didn't have enough
to sink all of us. Ya really float good in salt water. So, Larry put
on Trinda's gear and I took him out about 15 minutes and about 15 feet
deep. Binda then put on my gear and Trinda took her out. She is really
hooked on this. She can't believe the things you see under the water.

When we got back to the boat I took a little time to inspect the anchor
and look a little for my lost squid jig. I had hooked it to the bottom
the night before. No luck with the lure, but I noticed my anchor chain
was precariously near too many big rocks.

We decided that it was time to head back to San Carlos, so we planned
a 4:00 AM start to do the crossing in the daylight mostly this
time. It would put us on this side before sunset and anchoring in the
light. Well, you guessed it; the anchor didn't want to come up! It was
too dark to see anything, so we waited for dawn. I put on my gear,
but my tank was too low. I used Trinda's tank and sure enough, the
anchor was really stuck. There would have been no way to pull it out
with the chain. But, down there with the gear, I just lifted it out
of the crack it had fallen in and Larry pulled it right up. After 4
years anchoring in all kinds of bad places, I hadn't stuck the anchor,
until 2 weeks after I had scuba gear to get it out with!

We started on across. Trolling, we caught some more Dorados. The wind
had magically figured out which way we were heading and moved around to
40 degrees off the bow again. This time we had all the stuff (safety
lines, life jackets, etc.) setup right and it wasn't that strong. It
blew 20 most of the time, but the waves weren't over 3 feet, so it
wasn't too bad a trip.

We reached San Carlos about 8:30 PM in the dark, but after spending the
summer here we found our way in OK. Our mooring ball was still empty,
we felt like we were home again.

Larry, Trinda and Muffy