Thursday, February 5, 2009

Carrizal 2.5.09

We hauled anchor out of Santiago Bay with Pacific Jade and headed just up the coast to a cute anchorage named Carrizal. We were greeted by a couple of whales as we exited Santiago Bay – we never tire of seeing them. Carrizal is a smaller anchorage with a long entrance of high, rock hills on each side.
Some of the rocks had the red tint like lava rocks and there were lots of trees & foliage everywhere. Our first attempt at anchoring was skipping so we re-anchored and got a good bite. Both of us jumped into the water to cool off and Michael scrubbed the bottom & the propeller while I supervised. Wink wink! The water was a bit chilly so I made a mental note to wear a rash guard to help keep me warm when we went snorkeling. After a quick bite for lunch, we jumped into the dinghy & went to the North side of the entrance for some snorkeling with Deb & Joe. The water was still chilly & a bit murky but was still awesome. We saw several new fish that we haven’t seen before, some incredible blue coral, a sting ray that I watched for some time before it burrowed itself under the sand (it was trying to get away from another fish, not me!), & a sea anemone that looked like a dandelion when fully extended but would suddenly shrink up and look like a straw when startled. The colors were amazing & there were just so many fish everywhere! You could just hover around and see all of the life around you. It is just so spectacular here. We joked that a mediocre day snorkeling beats a good day at work anyday! Sorry, don’t mean to rub it in…

We rinsed off from snorkeling and headed over to Pacific Jade for another evening of margaritas & snacks.
Tom on another boat in the anchorage called Tis Magic joined us and we laughed & chatted for the evening. The swell had increased and was really coming into the anchorage – about 4-6 feet, but luckily a long period swell. And the boat pretty much stayed nose to the swells so we were doing the rocking horse maneuver, befitting the ‘carousel’ name of the anchorage! We rocked the entire evening and the swell just stopped about the time we were pulling anchor the following morning.

Because of the timing of the jobs we’re looking at in Alaska, we decided it’s time to begin heading North back to Mazatlan. We will leave the boat there for the summer again and need to have time to stop in places on our way and enjoy the rest of the time we have instead of bashing up quickly without stopping & having fun! We still don’t have jobs lined up, but have interviewed with several places and are waiting on offers, which we expect to get in the next week or two. Some places we interviewed at are expecting to make a decision by the end of the month, but the start date in Alaska is April 1st – 15th. So we will need to be in Mazatlan and get the boat put to bed by the middle of March. And so it goes…

So we are heading back to Barra lagoon and will be there for a couple of days, provisioning for the voyage North. We had a spectacular sunrise this morning and Pacific Jade was just behind us in the pictures!




There is some weather coming our way and we will stay in Barra until that passes, more than likely leaving early next week. Whew! How time flies. Next year we hope to have this system down better and will know what to expect! It is a bummer to leave friends but we’re sure to buddy boat with others heading North as well.

More to follow!
Rene

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