Feliz Nuevo Ano

A few days in Turtle Bay brought with it mixed events. On the unfortunate side, our beautiful Walker Bay sailing dinghy slipped its mooring in the night and is now somewhere between Baja and Hawaii. A couple of days of scouring the beaches around the bay turned up no luck, though we did manage to do a little fishing in the meantime and practice our Spanish with the local fishermen. Although a big bummer, its hard to feel too bad about much for long when your living in paradise! We do have two more
dinghies, both inflatable, and a kickin' 10 hp motor that gets us around the anchorage in record time. When Chris and Austen come back from Canada we'll try wake boarding behind it... it does leave a good wake!

More importantly, Turtle Bay was a place where cruisers hang out, and we finally got the opportunity to mingle amongst our brethren, so to speak. Grady, aboard "Mahollo", was particularly friendly, sharing stories, wine, and engine repairs. Though we shared only a few days together, we feel like we've struck another lifelong friendship.

On December 30th we set sail for Pta. Abrejos, about 100 miles south. The charts showed little there and the cruising guide spoke of only a small fishing village. Our expectations were low but our discovery was huge! The village is indeed tiny, but it is different than any we have seen thus far. It is so far off the beaten track that it is truly untouched by the ravages of American tourism. There was only one restaurant, a palapa on the beach, that never did open in the time we were there. All but
the front road is still made of dirt, but the town itself was superbly clean, tidy and well-maintained. The whole economy of the village centers around the co-op fishing community. Here you cannot buy a lobster from a panga (fishing boat) as you can anywhere else in Mexico. They will not even trade their catch for booze, for they are all so loyal to the cooperative, which sustains and takes care of them all well above the poverty line. In fact, there appeared to be no poverty at all in this town,
boasting new public utilities, a modern children's playground and a beautiful school. And almost every yard had at lest one surfboard!

After celebrating New Year's over a fresh barbecued lobster dinner that couldn't be beat, we set sail for Magdalena Bay, which is now about 50 miles away. We are presently motoring through a calm flat sea under another killer sunrise, hoping to make landfall in daylight this afternoon. We finally commissioned the fishing gear we brought and within an hour of setting out the line we caught a 3 foot shark, which we carefully released. We reset the line and within 10 minutes caught a beautiful Bonita
Tuna. As we ran around getting the gear together to board the fish (I went to change my clothes for cleaning it), the thing got away! So we reset the line and within 3 minutes caught another, a little larger than the first, which we gutted, cleaned, cooked and ate, all within the hour! Not being a practiced fisherman, the whole exercise was a little bumbling and a lot bloody, but well worth it, for the succulence of taste, and the satisfaction of knowing exactly where dinner came from.

As I write, the wind has picked up, and I'm going back on deck to unfurl the genoa and try to get a little sailing in. And yes, we do have pictures, which we need internet access to upload to the blog, so stay tuned for the visuals, which may appear in the next week or so...