While many of you where enjoying your thanksgiving dinner, we were on the menu for some smaller bug friends. We were eager to get some drone footage as we hadn't really had a chance with the right conditions. Since the drone (the new one) hadn't been flown before, we need a beach on a day with low wind. Which interestingly is also the recipe for a no-see-um and/or sand flea feast. Dan adventured into the beach grass just a bit too far and created a frenzied eating spree. I retreated to the water. Dan continued to fly the drown for a a few glorious minutes until he could stand it no more. The carnage was impressive. There were probably 50 to 100 bites in the lower 15" of both Dan's legs.
Upon arriving at the boat with some great footage, we realized that these creatures thought that the sea-salt damp, shaded retreat of a sailboat was an equally good homestead as the beach -- and contiained several humans on which they could continue their feast into the night. If Dan was the first course, well, I guess I was dessert. They waited until I fell asleep and proceeded to test out what parts were more tasty....back of the knees? neck? cheek? Ankles? Wrists? Well, interestingly they are all equally great to these small creatures. I ended up with at least 30 bites. With bendryl in hand, the irradication program went into full force. We doubled up all the screens with two layers. We aired out the cabin with all the fans and hatches when sailing across the San Jose Channel. We pulled out the insect clothes from Alaska.
We used copious amounts of repellent. We've learned everything we can about these creatures to avoid them in the future. We are hopeful that there are now less INSIDE the boat. But we aren't sure. We can't see em. Good news is that they don't seem to bother El Gato.
We spent a great day in San Evaristo which is a very small little village of 20 with an excellent
beach side restaurant. We are now thinking we should have spent a few more days there, so perhaps we'll have a chance to go back. We've shifted from searching for the 'best fish and chips on the coast' (i.e. Alaska to San Diego) to the "best fish tacos on the beach". It is still early in our research. We are using beach taco restaurants as a great place to learn (or relearn) our basic spanish. Each day it gets a bit better. We are starting at zero, so not hard to improve on that. Whatever is necessary for those great tacos.
After one night at the named "Puerto Los Gatos" anchorage (named apparently after a Puma family that used to live in some nearby caves), our El Gato was less than pleased when we woke up at midnight to some very large waves that had made their way into the anchorage and had Okisollo rolling around. The rocking persisted throughout the night and at 6 am we were up and ready to get out of there as quick as we could. Its no fun being in 4-5' waves. The geology was super cool and the snorkeling looked like it would have been amazing on a calm day. Again another place to return in the next few months.
Today we rounded the the last corner and are on the final stretch to Puerto Escondido, which will be our home base for most of the upcoming winter months. We are in beautiful Bahai Agua Verde and already can see that this area will be a great cruising ground with lots of tourquoise water to explore with the beautiful La Giganta mountain range in the background. I had to put a long sleeve shirt on today as we were sailing up wind (yes, we actually tacked up wind today!) and the great North wind was 78 degrees....maybe 70 with the wind chill. Brrrrr. No complaints here. All is well.
We're racing out of Tacoma tomorrow and I suspect the weather won't be as accommodating. But I also suspect there won't be any bugs to battle with, so there's that. (Angie)