Island Visit - Espiritu Santo

Two anchorages on Espirito Santo

On Wednesday (Feb 11th) we departed for a four to five day jaunt out to Espiritu Santo with Dave and Anna aboard as our first official sailing crew!  We have never been so spoiled.  Dave and Anna provisioned for and cooked all of our meals ... and they were all outstanding!  They run a charter out of Kootenay Lake, British Columbia (in the summers obviously) and love to sail ... so not only were they great cooks, but also great crew!  I could easily get used to having extra crew ... four extra hands sure makes EVERYTHING easier!  And now for a quick commercial break ... their company is Red Sky at Night Sailing Adventures (www.sailthekootenays.com, info@sailthekootenays.com, 1-877-RED-SKYS).  From the three nights we spent with them I can only say that anyone who charters with them is going to be extremely spoiled and come away quite relaxed!

Bahia San Gabriel

Dave took this awesome shot from the top of the mast .. with a film camera (that's my bald head)
http://www.daveheathphotography.com/

Now, we come to a bit of a problem in this journal entry ... although I started writing this Feb 28th with the intention of hopefully posting it prior to leaving La Paz or as soon as we got to Puerto Vallarta, it is now March 21st, and, as you can tell, I have yet to finish ... the "problem" is that we are in rapid prep mode for the puddle jump (South Pacific crossing).  Our intent is to leave the marina (Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta) on Tuesday morning, the 22nd.  We will anchor out at Punta de Mita (in Banderas Bay) and wait for a weather window to begin the crossing (so far we are hearing that a good window might come Wednesday or Thursday).  Anyway, my point is that I don't have time to tell you about our adventures at the beautiful island of Espiritu Santo, or how we finally ran into Sea Pilgrim again, or the interesting sights of La Carnival (Maudi Gras).  It looks like I'll have to finish telling you about our other small world experiences another time.  I also won't be able to get in the next journal entry about our trip from La Paz to Banderas Bay, our stay in Paradise Village (Nuevo Vallarta), or the great time we had when Greg and Lisa (from Ventura) visited.  And finally, you'll just have to wait to hear about all the other fun puddle jumpers we met and our hard week of work in order to prepare for the jump!

But I figure I've got 3,000 miles to work on all that -- so stay tuned!  In the meantime we hope to be updating the website's "Current Location" (on the home page) with our Longitude and Latitude about once a week (during the crossing)... if you're interested you'll have to check back on your own -- there won't be any web update email that goes out.  We have no idea what the internet situation will be once we get to the Marquesas, but we promise to get back online as soon as possible.  Thanks for traveling with us through Mexico ... see you in the South Pacific!