Q: What kind of food do you cook onboard? 

A: Currently, Keith’s favorite meal is chicken tacos, so we make that frequently. Keith also loves homemade chicken noodle soup, so Christi makes soup out of the bones every time she makes chicken for the tacos. Other foods Christi has made recently include: Ground Beef and Rice Florentine, Cabbage and Asparagus Salad with Tahini Dressing, Roasted Broccoli with Tomato Vinaigrette, Lemon-Asparagus Risotto, Coconut-Lime Rice, and Carrot-Cabbage-Potato Soup.

Thursday (August 11) was a chores day. Eric equalized had batteries and changed the watermaker filter. He also went over to Sprezzatura to help the other Eric with a repair. 

In the evening, we had dinner with Sprezzatura Eric at the marina restaurant. We also visited with Nick (from the volcano hike) and his girlfriend, Veronica, who had also recently come into Puerto Escondido.   

On Friday, we got the boat ready to go first thing in the morning. We left the marina at 1000, and arrived at Ballandra Cove on Isla Carmen at around 1300. The seas were smooth. We were the only boat there. The first photo is looking at the mouth of the bay, with Baja and Loreto in the distance. The second two are what it looks like in the anchorage.

Once Kosmos was anchored and situated, we went for a swim. The water clarity was amazing – the best we’ve seen yet. The anchorage was calm, but the heat made us lethargic. Eric made a wind scoop in the hopes that it would keep the boat cool. While it did help some, it wasn’t enough to take the edge off the heat.

Shortly before sunset, a boat named Temptress pulled into the anchorage. We were delighted — The Temptress crew are the friends we’d made in the marina who had taken us grocery shopping in Loreto and had the grandchildren in town. Here is a sunset photo from Friday.

Here is a photo of the moon and the lights of Loreto on Saturday morning, taken just as the sun was just beginning to rise.

On Saturday morning, Eric realized that he needed to clean the watermaker sensor and possibly adjust the pressure. Getting to the watermaker is a challenge, as we keep a lot of gear stowed in front of it. Eric moved all the gear, sweating buckets in the heat, and was frustrated to find that he couldn’t do the work because he needed a special tool. 

We all went snorkeling. The water clarity wasn’t as amazing as it had been yesterday, but it was still great. The snorkeling here was nice, comparable to the pass at V-Cove, but not as good as the rocks/caves near the anchorage in V-Cove. 

In the afternoon, Temeptress invited us over. Eric and Christi hung out and talked to the adults, while a couple of the adults took turns pulling the kids on a tube with the dinghy. Keith had a blast with the kids. 

In the evening, Nick and Veronica pulled into the anchorage. After we got back from Temptress, Eric went over to their boat for a visit.